Six Inches
by Amatera
Summary: Planned attacks on medical ninjas, confusion in Sunagakure, and Sakura who doesn't look through it...At first she thought she was sent away because she was useless, but then a whole village counts on her help. Kankuro X Sakura KankSaku
1. Prologue

"You want to send me there as a nurse?" Sakura's words echoed in Tsunade's ears. She massaged her temples, trying to keep calm.

"Nurse is only the way to call you position there, Sakura..." Godaime Hokade sighed. "You'll be an important part of the whole there, believe me."

"But why shall I go? There a so many other medics here that could go!" Sakura yelled, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"But they need a tutor for their young medics there - Sakura, think about it!" Tsunade exclaimed, not giving up. "You are the best thing I can give them, and it's not easy for me either."

Sakura was still standing around with her arms crossed, thinking about the situation she had to master now.

Her teacher had called her this morning, telling her that she had a long-term task for her, and her along in Sunagakure. And because they're allies, she would send Sakura to them, her best student.

Sakura was happy about the important task at first, but when Tsunade told her that she would go as a nurse to tutor young medics in the Village of the Hidden Sand, for a whole year, there was another feeling rising up in Sakura.

She felt like she was pushed away by her teacher, away into a far-off, boring land.

When she was told about something long-termed, she didn't think about a year.

And not as something like a...nurse.

She was a kunoichi, not a nurse.

A kunoichi.

"Think about the people there, Sakura." Tsunade tried to touch her heart with some words. "They need good teacher there..."

Sakura sighed. "Sure...okay...I'll do it for you." If she's going to be sent away, she'll go in honor.

Godaime Hokage clapped her hands in a childlike way. "You have such a good soul."

Sakura sighed yet again. "Yes...I know."

"What changed your opinion?" Tsunade pulled her student closer and hugged her.

"The people..." Sakura said with a muffled voice. "They're not my people from my village, but they are...our friends, aren't they? They deserve our help, since we have so many nurses here..."

Tsunade gave a sad smile behind Sakura's back.

The girl didn't know the true reason, but it's easier for a seventeen-years old to think she was uselessen then to know that a whole village was relying on her help.

Yet, it hurt Tsunade to give her away like this.


	2. They are my boys

Temari was tapping her foot while waiting for the order to depart.

Beside her, there were only Tsunade and Sakura standing at the gates of Konohagakure. Nobody else was saying goodbye to her, which made Temari feel a little strange. She always thought that this girl had quite many friends, not to forget her own team. Wasn't she the best friend of this blonde girl?

Something was really not right there, but she couldn't tell what.

Godaime Hokage gave Sakura a warm smile. "And you have everything you need?" Her voice sounded concerned, yet very happy that Sakura was willingly to go to Suna. She was sure that she would reach the harsh lands safely with Temari as an escort, who was travelling between Konoha and Suna every now and then when she decided that staying in one country for too long was rather boring.

"You're talking like my mother already." Sakura said dryly, trying to ignore the fact that nobody actually came to say good-bye to her. It would be a tough year with the knowledge that nobody cared about her being there or being not.

Tsunade ruffled Sakura's hair and smiled. "You'll do fine. Come back in one piece, will you?"

Sakura nodded, throwing one last look into the village.

Nobody was there.

"Good-bye Tsunade-shishou, I'll see you next year!" She gave her teacher a unexpected, light hug and turned her back to her, facing Temari, who gave her a smile, as if to say that she was welcome into another, unknown society.

---

"So, what does it feel like to get such an important task to master?" Temari asked, after some time of great, uncomfortable silence. She couldn't stand the semi-depressed expression of the younger girl who seemed to drown in her own thoughts already.

"Bad." Was the harsh answer. And secretly, Sakura asked herself what kind of stupid question this was, she had seen that nobody cared about her leaving the village for a year. "Or how would you feel if you know that the people who mean something...or meant something to you want to get rid of you so easy?"

Temari gave her a curious look. "What do you mean? I think it's great that you'll come along, especially for such a long time."

Sakura sighed. "Sure.."

"It seems to me that you don't know why you travel with me." Temari stated, leaving no place for a question. "That's cruel, Hokage could at least have told you."

"She told me that you people need a tutor for young medics, and that I'm the only one who could do it. Does that sound important? I though Suna had a great lot of good medics to go around with."

Temari nodded. "So you really don't know? Fine.." She quickly readjusted her fan, which seemed to ache in her back. "You may not know, but there were many...assasinations going on in the last few weeks. The main targets were medics, especially the good ones, and the majority of them died during those attacks. Sure we still have some, but they are only Genin, and the potential isn't high enough yet to aid a whole village." Temari gave final sigh. "Crisis, anyone?"

"So that's why I was sent out?" Sakura asked with a small hope in her voice, receiving a snap on her forehead from Temari.

"Sure. I think Hokage just didn't want to give you a burden as long as you still were home - and now you can't turn around anymore."

"Temari-san..." Sakura looked up to the taller young woman. "Who attacked you?"

Temari shrugged. "Mostly they were shinobi from the Grass. But I don't know why they would want to weaken us, if it weren't for war. We hadn't had that much business with Grass, you know..."

"War is such a horrible thing." Sakura sighed. "I don't like fighting actually, but it's my duty to stay at the battlefield as soon as I'm called to. "

Temari decided not to go into the topic further. She told herself that the heartless actions of Hokage were enough already, even if they were meant to be a good thing at first.

"You know, we'll take our time. There's no need to hurry, everyone who could have been injured is already, and everyone is on guard, so we can go some parts a little slower." She fluffed one of her ponytails up a little. "You will share a room with my this year, so don't worry about being all alone. I'm used to it, I had to share a room with Kankuro for about fourteen years, so nothing can make me panic so soon." She added with a bitter, annoyed face, picturing the first fourteen years of her life in horror.

"Was it that bad?" Sakura asked with crossed arms.

"I kicked him out of our room for two reasons. First, it's creepy to store your puppets in your bedroom, and second, it's not really attractive to share a room with your younger brother. So I just pretended he was peeping on me, so he got a room on his own." Temari smirked and tugged a little on her new clothes, which she bought plenty of while staying in Konoha.

"You're talking as if it is hard to have siblings."

"Not hard, just annoying sometimes. You have to share everything since you were a little girl, even if you are the sweetheart of the family. And you don't have any privacy when you don't have room on your own." She shook her head, sending some blonde bange into flying. "But still, it's nice...you're never alone, and even now. I think I would be lonely without my boys."

Sakure smiled. "I envy you for having siblings. I'm a only-child, and it's hard to break out of you parent's grip when they protected you your whole life."

"Oh well, you shouldn't envy me. Being a sister isn't that pleasent, maybe I could say sometimes it's the same like with your parents." Temari laughed and scratched the back of her head. "Or less horibble, I don't know. But as soon as brother escape puberty, they realize what's going on around their big sis, so they get all 'Get-off-my-sister'."

"Your give me a head-ache, Temari-san! I can't imagine Gaara running around and roaring at everyone who gives you a strange look." Sakura snickered.

"Drop this -san stuff, you're not a stranger, Sakura." Temari patted Sakura's head. "And he had changed so much since Shukaku was removed, even if not in that direction..but he got to be a serious workaholic. You'll never get him away from his desk, and I wonder if he ever eats or drinks. The nervous one is Kankuro, after all...and mainly because he's horrible bored since he realized that Gaara is an adult now who can protect himself. He just...well. He got some pills from the medics against his nevousness, but he doesn't like to take them." Temari broke into laughter again. "It's so bizarre how this family had changed through some years.. . I guess it's good you'll get to stay with me, I need a girl-friend to talk to, and not only my strange brother."

"When I first met you guys, I though you were strange freaks...but now...you seem so familiar to me." Sakura said with a smile. "I think it will be great year."

Temari nodded, agreeing.

---

It's said that when you're fast, you can reach Sunagakure within three days, but it didn't seem to worry Temari to get there quickly. She always said that they weren't in such a hurry, and that their shinobi would protect their village with their lives. Also she stated, that drowning Sakura's power would be stupid, since there would be work waiting for her as soon as she arrived in the Village of the Hidden Sand.

Sakura wondered why there were medic Genin in Sunagakure, since she didn't remember that this job was something popular to learn as a Genin, and in her Generation, she was the only one who learned to be medic. Nobody like the thought of having responsibilities as heavy as the women and men of the medical squad had.

"Medics are honored people, didn't you know that? In harsh lands like our desert, it's important to have people who know what to do if you accidently step on a scorpion or if you get bitten by a snake. There are even insect that can cause massive problems if they only fly into your eyes." Temari said while looking at the clear, blue sky. "I'm not a medical expert, but such things...you learn them when born there. But you don't learn what to do beside sucking the poison from the wound."

"I always though it would be smarter to let every shinobi learn basic medical things." Sakura shrugged. "But I can't suggest such things - I'm still a Chuunin, and not a good one either. I'm only good with...Medical Ninjutsu and Genjutsu. Nobody would listen to me, and Tsunade-shishou can't decide something like that even if she's Hokage and convinced that it would be something smart to do."

"I'm the last one who would doubt that you are a good medic with good ideas." Temari pinched Sakura's nose. "You saved my brother, after all. I think you're right, if more people would be instructed to medical basics, there would be no need to press people into a job they don't want to do. They can't be a substitute for a real doctor but...first aid could save some more lives."

"You're a good person, Temari." Sakura smiled. "Even if you act tough sometimes. You love your village and the people to no limits, right?"

"Just like you do. I was born there and I will die there, hopefully. And hopefully, not too soon." Temari grinned and pointed forward. "You see this? This is the stone covered, first part of the desert. Some kilometres forward, we'll reach the sands, and then it won't be long anymore. We shall rest a little, or we'll burn in the sun like those shrimps on a stick they sell in your village."

Sakura gave a laugh. Temari sure wasn't used to eating fish somehow and enjoyed her stays at Konohagakure, and beside eating various seafood, she also loved to go shopping for the latest clothes, having an eye on the traditional, kimonostyled things.

"So, what is Sunagakure like? I've not been there for long, and my stay there wasn't really a long vacation." Sakura asked, leaning onto a tree while Temari checked her fan for scratches.

"Hmm...a nice place. How should a describe it without getting subjective? People there are usually a big whole, relying on each other and trusting each other. And if you like children, we have plenty of them, much to Kankuro's dislike." She said, snickering a little.

"Yep, I remember...he's not that good with children, isn't he?"

"Not really. I think he can't get over the fact that he was one himself." Temari shrugged. "He'll be a little upset when we come back I think, since I payed some of my little pals to annoy him a bit."

"How cruel." Sakura said with a expression that showed her that she didn't really believe what Temari told her.

"He needs it. Otherwise he would put the house into pieces while nobody is there to have a talk with him or to do something with him. Or he would spend his time eating all the stuff I stored as supplies for emergencies. Or getting himself drunk with the unlabled alcholics that are stored in the basement..." Temari began to pull on her ponytails in horror, sweating blood and water. "I'm punished with the most unmature brother in the world."

"I bet it's not that bad, Temari. Calm down, you'll find everything okay when you're home again." Sakura tried to calm Temari, patting her back gently.

"Sure...I should be calmer." She breathed in and out a few times. "Calm Temari, calm. He's nineteen, not nine anymore. He won't do anything stupid."

Sakura wiped her brow and looked up to the horizon. She could see the stone-covered part of the desert, and some dunes that were reaching up to the sky far away.

After three days, they had finally reached the border of the Fire Country and the Wind Country, and it was like Sakura had to leave something important here, and tell it to wait for her a whole year, until she comes back to pick it up again.

---

There was sand in her sandals, but Sakura didn't mind. The ground was soft and warm, hot almost, and it felt a little like her soles were smoldering unter her feet, but she enjoyed this feeling. She felt alive with the heat unter her feet and the sun shining down from above.

Temari on the other hand didn't seem to mind the heat and the sun. She frolicked over the sand, pointing here and there, explaining which cactus one could cut to drink the juice it stored, which plant was eatable and picking up some animals here and there, telling Sakura which scorpions had poisonous tails and which not. She was in her element, picking rare flowers that grew unter the sand in a mysterious way, and collecting small stones that were formed by the sand over the years, explaining that there were people in the village who could make beautiful jewellery out of those.

Sakura sure was impressed by the lively spirits that possessed Temari all of the sudden, watching with respect how the young woman caught a small, black snake by the head, showing that it got teeth but no poison dripping from it.

"The desert lives, even if it's a hard life, Sakura." She smiled, setting the snake free, watching as it fled under the sand. "It's that same in out village, but other that the animals here, we can just trade with Konoha to get supplies, and we know how to hunt down the right animals. We can build wells and pump up water from them, and we don't need to kill each other to get something to eat."

"Temari-chan, that's nice...but.." before Sakura could end her sentence, Temari fell into it.

"Temari-chan sounds sure nice, even if I'm a tad too old for it." She grinned.

"...my feet feel like barbequed chicken legs." Sakura stated, with a stoic face.

Temari gave a laugh. "Do you see this? That's the entrance to Sunagakure. You don't have to worry, we'll be there in no time."

Sakura nodded, looking at her feet.

And she realized that somebody would have a sunburn for the next few days.

---

**Hi there, if you read "Mud", then you'll know that this fat stuff are the author's notes. :3**

**So, I started my second fic, which runs parallel to "Mud", which means I'll update whenever I have a chapter finished, which could take some time for each. **

**I'll apologize if any character is OOC, but since this is set when Sakura is seventeen ( two years after the Time Skip in Manga), and there is some time between what happens in the manga right now and my story, I think it's okay to say "People change". And I never saw Temari as a mean, bad, tough girl actually. At least not with people she like, and, really, how much of her private life have we seen? **

**And sorry for setting Kankuro on medication - it's for the sake of entertainment, and I can really imagine that. **

**So, we'll see each other next chapter, I guess? Have fun. :D**


	3. Envoy from the Leaf

For the last days, Kankuro had faced his personal Nemesis. He got to know his private hell, or whatever one would like to call it.

He was constantly hiding from those kids Temari had obviously hired to annoy the hell out of him, even if it were just childish attempts. But they could ask a few hundert times again, he still would not come out and play with them. They were loud, and they were so...child-like.

They gave him a horrible picture of what he must have looked like when he was doing those things when he was eight years old.

Now, he had found a place on a roof, where he will have some time on his own. For at least some hours.

Time which he would spend plotting.

Plotting revenge on his sister for pulling him down in this hell, beside from leaving the village to pick up some simple medic outside of her stay-time in Konoha.

He clenched his teeth, flinging silent curses around, before he realized who was walking down the street some metres underneath him.

Temari was back, followed by a pink haired kunoichi, which he hadn't even spent a thought on the last two years after he was saved by her.

Actually, he didn't even spend a second thought now, his main target was his sister, who was frolicking around, laughing and pointing at some buildings every now and then.

---

Temari felt like she hadn't been home in ages, showing Sakura around, explaining where she should go when she needes this-and-that, andof course, she told her every two minutes that she shouldn't hesitate to ask if she needed something.

"You'll find it to be not more or less bad than Konoha, really." Temari told her, stopping on their ways on the lively streets.

Sakura hadn't thought that Suna was very different from Konoha, in the streets were vendors, selling their stuff, children playing while their mothers were shopping, and plenty of Suna shinobi who were walking around as if there never had been an attack on their medical ninja.

But her thoughts were cut off by a shrill shriek of Temari, who, as she saw when she turned around, was flug over Kankuro's shoulder, who grinned and tickled the hollow of her knee.

"Let me down, let me down you male-bitch!" she yelled, tugging on his shirt (Temari somehow was thankful that he dropped the overall some years ago).

"As if I would let you, after you chained me and threw me into this hell!" He set her down again, but so slow that Temari was looking at him with a grim expression, ready to jump into his face and scratch it so nobody would recognize it again, but some children who were running towards her stopped her grim thoughts. She gave them a happy smile as they pulled her down on her skirt.

"Temari! We did what you told us, but Kankuro was always hiding from us, he's not fair!"

Kankuro took some steps back in fear, almost crushing into the side of a booth were plates and such were sold.

"That's alright." Temari reached into her pocket and gave the children some coins. "Now go ahead and buy yourself some sweets, I'll be mean to Kankuro."

Temari laughed as the children strolled off with happy faces, turning to her brother.

"You heard it, you're not fair." She smirked, waving Sakura over. "We'll go, but you can be a sweetheart if you like, and take our backpacks."

With that, she just threw the luggage at her brother.

"What?" He trembled backwards again, missing the booth he almost crushed again. "Hey, don't tell me she'll live at our's.."

"She will" Temari waved over her shoulder, laughing. It was good to be home again, somehow.

"You're popular with the children." Sakura stated after some minutes of walking, and as soon as they didn't hear Kankuro's curses anymore, she began to talk again. "You never seemed to be the one who would be."

"They're cute, especially when you can use them as your secret weapon." She gave a dirty grin and a impish laugh. "You need to be ready for everything."

Sakura smiled. "I didn't remember Kankuro to be that much tall than you, by the way. My memory sure is bad."

Temari smiled and crossed her arms. "He's still growing a little, last time I remember, he was at one hundred and eightyeight centimetres. Quite a lot, it's a little strange when your younger brothers are slowly towering you." She began to gesture with her hands. "Gaara is also that much taller than me now. But you know what I think is interesting?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I think it's pretty that your hair is at your shoulders now. Now you could wear it like I do."

"Thanks, but I refuse. I don't have the volume for this style." Sakura answered with a twitching smile.

Temari shrugged, pointing forward. "Do you see this building? That's the substitute for the hospital...which burned out because of some...incident."

"Incident!" Sakura asked slightly shocked. "What kind of incident could make a hospital BURN OUT!"

"Well...there were bottles with oxygene stored in one room, and one wasn't closed properly I think...some smart guy then thought he could smoke there and everything went...boom. The fire wasn't noticed until half of he building was wrecked." Temari dryly replied. "I wonder why such stupid people live, or how the hell they manage to get a higher rank than Genin in their whole life."

"..." Sakura didn't say anything, she just stared at the burned out ruins. "So we'll go to the subsitute hospital? Shouldn't I report in first...?"

Temari cut her sentence off. "Nah. I'll do this, there's no way I would lie to my brother, eh?"

"Such a relaxed atmosphere...shishou would have killed me if I would do it like this." The medic said.

Temari laughed and pulled Sakura along. "Come on, you'll not be too pleased with the hospital, but you don't have that big a choice."

"Oh. Great."

"Now, don't make such a face, I know that's something stupid, but I can't change it." Temari scratched the back of her head. "Hey, but you'll have two girls you can tutor...you'll have fun!"

---

The hospital wasn't as bad as Sakura had thought it would be, but still it was shabby. It was basically one big hall with some beds and many mattresses on the floor, and one special room for surgery and other bloody things. And as an extra, everything didn't look to sterile.

But to her surprise, there were patients lying in the hall already, and two girls with aprons were mending lesser wounds, but not without looking exhausted after every injury they treated.

Sakura instincly looked down on herself. She had received a new apron in Konoha, one that reached her mid-thighs, and had large straps that covered her whole chest, with a small, red cross in a circle on her right breast.

She was a nurse now, right?

"So, how do you think it is?" Temari asked, noticing the concerned looks Sakura gave everything.

"Not too bad." Sakura sighed. "But how could you let those two girls work so hard? They're not ready for such harsh duties yet."

"They work here because they wanted to." Temari smiled, clapping her hands two times. "Hey, there! Yaya, Eti, come here, will you?"

The two girls, one with long, grayish-brown hair and the other one with messy, short, black hair, looked up, thankful for the break. "Sempai?" The long-haired one asked.

"Who else? So look there, from today, you have a new teacher, who'll take care over this hospital part." Temari pointed at Sakura, who gave a slight bow.

The boyish, short-haired one gave Sakura a unfriendly look. "She's from the Leaf. And not much older than we are."

The long haired one poked her friend. "Don't be so rude Eti, the shinobi from Konoha are very nice people."

"And that's why they only send us one lousy nurse." Eti gave the long-haired on, obviously Yaya, a sharp look. "I don't believe she can help us."

Temari had her hands resting on her hips now, giving Eti a angered look. "You're such a impolite brat, Eti!" She snapped her finger. "Haruno Sakura is the apprentice of the legendary Tsunade, and I've seen few people with such potential."

Yaya's eyes grew wide, sparkling. "So you're the one who saved Kankuro-sempai two years ago?"

A sudden nausea was taking place in Sakura's stomach. It was obvious that this girl, who was thirteen at maximum, had a thing for the Jounin puppeteer, which was a little icky, as Sakura thought. She told herself that it's the same, stupid admiration she felt for Sasuke when she was twelve, but far away from really strong feelings. But still, she thought, it's a littly disgusting.

"Eh...yes." Was what she answered, looking a little sheepish.

"Then you're a hero!" Yaya almost jumped onto Sakura, but ended up only taking her hand. "I'll gladly be your student!"

Eti growled. "You're embarrassing, Yaya." She then looked up to Sakura. "Well, yea, I think you might not be as lousy as I though. I'm Eti, and that's my cousin Yaya." Eti offered her hand, and Sakura gladly shook it, a little thankful for the childish admiration Yaya held for her now.

Temari grinned. "I'll go report to brother, and you do your work here, I'll come pick you up when I'm back."

Leaving through the widely opened entrance, Temari waved over her shoulder as she did when leaving Kankuro with their luggage.

---

"The hospital burned out, Temari-sempai surely told you." Yaya helped Sakura to sort out dull scalpels from a box that she had found in the surgery. "It was then split into three parts for the time being, and now we have to cure patients in the biggest halls in town. This here is Part Two, Part One is in the northern part of the village, and Part Three in the western. We can hold seventyfive patients at once and are the biggest part. We also have the surgery and the best equipment, but many things got lost when the former hospital burned out, and Konoha couldn't aid out with equipment because they were short on it themselves, as you might know."

Sakura listentend to the talkative girl, agreeing in her thoughts. It was true that Sunagakure asked if it's possible to lend medical equipement some time ago, and that Konohagakure had so decline because they didn't have enough themself.

"If she get's to deep into her babbling, just ignore her." Eti yelled from across the room. Making Yaya clench her fist.

"It's alright." Sakura looked at the scalpels. "What happened to your former teacher, Yaya?"

The long-haired Genin shrugged. "She got killed by Grass shinobi. They aimed at the Jounin first, so they got out of the way. They seemed to know that their Genin students didn't have the knowledge yet to treat them."

"So you don't have any medics at Chuunin level?" Sakura asked with an unbelieving expression. "That's strange, you know, at Konoha, most of the medics are Chuunin because they are too specialized on Ninjutsu - the highest a normal medic gets is a Special Jounin, if we execlude Tsunade-shishou."

"Many of our medics are well rounded fighters, Sakura-sensei." Eti put down another box beside the desk that stood in a corner next to the surgery. "In this land, it's deadly of you can not defend yourself."

"I still need to learn a lot, I guess." Sakura sighed, looking at another scalpel. "But you know, we should get to do other things now. I bet you know where you can take the scalpels for sharpening, that's the first thing you can do now. And then we will fill up your Kunai-holster with scalpels. They have the same effect, but you can use them for more differen things, while a Kunai is too plump to be used to cut out stones out of wounds."

Eti looked down at the boxes. "Well, I'll go and take them to a smith then. If Yaya goes and accidently bumps into Kankuro-sempai, she won't be useful for the rest of the day."

Yaya roared at her cousin who took the small boxes and jogged out of the hall, doing slalom between the beds and mattresses.

Sakura laughed, patting Yaya's head. "It's okay." She pulled the cloth of Yayas forehead protector, which the girl really wore on her forehead, a little tighter. "It shouldn't slip down when you are working."

Yaya blushed a little and pushed some strands of hair back. "Can you tell something about the great Tsunade? Our old sensei used to talk a lot about her, telling about the giant slug she could summon, and that Tsunade would never die in battle."

"Tsunade-shishou is a nice woman, with a very great heart, even if she doesn't show it all the time." Sakura gave a thoughtful expression. "A little like Temari, who's always acting tough but is a loving person. And Tsunade can summon a slug, that's true, and about the other thing...I'm not allowed to tell you."

Yaya shook her head. "That's enough already, she must be a wonderful person! I want to meet her one day!"

Sakura smiled, pulling a first-aid-kit up on the desk. "Maybe you can come with me to Konoha if the year is over, then you can meet her."

"You'll only stay for a year?" Yaya asked, a little disappointed. "How shall we learn something in one year?"

"A year can be a long time, and you'll learn enough to learn new things by yourself after it. I aquired my skills in two and a half years, so it's piece of cake for energic girls like you." Sakura sticked her nose into the kit, looking interested. "So let's see, we'll compose a small First-Aid-Kit for each of you, so you can practice whenever you see a kid falling on it's knees."

---

The hospital Part Two was as busy and lively this day, that the patients were surprise about it. The new medic from the Leaf cured most of the mild injuries that resided there, minor fractures, ripped muscles, scratches and broken bones.

Eti, who came back from her last journey to the blacksmith, brought Sakura two filled buns and a flask of cooled down tea. "Sensei, it's evening already." She pointed out of the window. "Can't we end it for today? The other two halls are doing the nighshift this week."

Sakura, biting one of the buns hungry as can be, nodded, but made a sign with her hand for them to wait. After getting the bread down to her stomach, she coughed.

"Wait a moment. Since when were you working today?"

"We started at about...five in the morning.." Yaya counted on her finger, then looking to the clock that hung on the wall.

"That's far too much for two thriteen-years old, you two." Sakura tried to hide the shock about the long time she kept the exhausted girls awake. "You know, we'll do it like this. I'll be here at five in the morning, and you at nine. You two are still growing, you need to sleep and eat good, so you won't be my patients one day."

Eti and Yaya didn't understand first, but then smiled at Sakura who made their lives a little easier.

"And you'll leave here at ten in the evening, so you'll still have a long day, but relax, you know that there's not always work in hospital like..this. And now go home, I don't want to see your faces here anymore until tomorrow morning."

---

Empty hospitals are scary. That's what Temari thought when she finally came back into the hall where she left Sakura, who was sitting on the desk now, because it lacked a chair. She grinned and waved, a little embarressed.

"Sorry, I had to help with paperwork..." She looked around. "Unbelievable, so you treated all the patients here?"

"Almost. I told the one with the headache that he should go home and come again tomorrow." Sakura yawned. "And how was your day?"

Temari chuckled. "Boring. But hey, you know what? As long as I'm home, I was told to guard you." She made a serious face then. "Gaara said that you might become a target now while you are here, and because you are student of Godaime Hokage, we need to have protection for you, even if you could fend for yourself. So I'll guard the entrance als long as you are working here. And if you have days off, I'll go to town with you...or whatever you want to do. You are a precious belonging to this village, Sakura, we want you to be safe so that you can do you job, and we want to ship you back to Konoha in one piece, if possible."

Sakura nodded, and she realized that she hadn't thought about it in this way. She didn't think about it as a dangerous job to teach those two girls the things she knows, but now she realized what kind of trouble she had gotten in.

"Don't worry too much." Temari waved her over. "There were no attack the last weeks, so you may be safe at the moment. And now let's get home, we have to make Kankuro take his pills, or else he'll be grumpy tomorrow."

**---**

**FAQ: Yaya and Eti - How do I spell those names?**

**Yaya - Jah-sch-a**

**Eti - Eeh-tee**

**Really, I couldn't think of better names, and thes sound nice. They are easy to remember and I can't imagine those characters with other names (because I know how they look like - haha.).**

**Kankuro has finally appeared, for those of you who couldn't wait for it. Even if only for short. xD**

**You see the power of the big sister there.**

**Again, I'm sorry for OOC, but I hope you like that I made this chapter longer. I just felt the need to write suddenly. **

**We'll see each other next chapter -waves-**


	4. Uncomfortable

"Your job is really hard, even on your first day." Temari watched the yawning Sakura who trotted next to her. "It's good that you've eaten already - I wouldn't count on Kankuro's cooking skills. Or mine. Our stuff is made to get you satiated, not to taste good. The lack of cooking skill must run in the family or something."

Sakura giggled. "I wonder how you manage to be still alive."

"When father was still alive, we didn't have to worry about getting tasty food, you might have noticed that Kankuro was chubby at the Chuunin-exam. Well, he still has a babyface..:" Temari chuckled, patting her cheek. "You can see it if you pay attention to his cheeks."

"Well...when I was here two years ago, he didn't look that chubby anymore, and I was able to inspect his body well enough." Sakura stated without any sign of embarressment, much to Temari's satisfaction, who really wouldn't like the thought of her brother having a groupie, which was a weird enough though, since she knew the one who was popular among the girls was Gaara, and not Kankuro. She couldn't even imagine Kankuro having interest in a relationship that would go deeper that friendship. Hell, she thought, that man was completely asexual to some point that would go beyond patting the butts of randome girls in a jokingly way.

"Well, he wasn't fat at the exam - it was this goofy overall he had to wear. He also needed some weight to avoid falling on his back while carrying Karasu around." The blonde explained with funny gestures. "Imagine this!"

"For me it sounds like he's the most funny topic you can talk about..." Sakura said with a laugh bursting out of her lungs when Temari imitated a Kankuro that was falling on his back, pulled to the ground by a much-too-heavy Karasu.

"I need to do this. He's my brother, and a weird one also. If I can't make fun of him, I would be a boring sister." She pulled the sash around her waist tighter. "You know I care, don't you? He says I don't."

"Telling little jokes about your family really shows you care - because you can say you know that there's some truth behind the things you noticed." Sakura fluffed her hair. "I wish I could say that too."

Temari placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, smiling at her. "You don't have to worry as long as you're here - If your family is that boring and annoying, you'll have a much better time here, I promise you."

---

Kankuro gave Temari a I-should-strangle-you-look.

Temari gave him one in return. She knew that he wasn't too happy about the thing with the luggage earlier, and that he would be grumpy now.

"Yo." She finally said. "Did you take your pills yet?"

"I don't need this stuff anymore." Was the dry reply before Temari poked into his cheek, ruining his facepaint. She thought it looked stupid without his cowl anyway, and he had to remove it before he went to sleep, so it didn't make a difference.

"I wouldn't say this, but..." Temari gave Sakura a wink, nodding her over. "Maybe Sakura-chan can tell you if you will still need them."

"What were the pills for anyway?" Sakura asked, curious why she would have inspect Kankuro all of the sudden.

"I told you before...he's a little too nervous. And that's why he was set on those pills, even if I don't know why he was nervous like that..." Temari didn't stop poking into her brother's cheek, even if his patience began to fade away slowly.

Sakura shrugged. "Well, let me see..then." She moved her fingertip onto Kankuro's forehead when Temari had stopped poking his cheek and took a step aside. "Eh..."

Kankuro learned to keep his mouth shut over the years, even if anybody could read from his face that he really wasn't happy to have the girls touching his face, so he decided to end this sillyness. "What's with 'Eh'? This surely pisses me off, doctors and nurses are all the same, they never tell you what's really up..." He clenched his teeth and crossed his arms.

"It's alright...you never needed this stuff anyway I think..." Sakura smiled, moving her hand away. "You're not ill, you were just going through late puberty-"

Temari bursted out a laugh, holding her stomach and wiping away a tear in her eye. "And that's why I never asked!"

She received another pissed look from her brother, who didn't really seem to like it when his sister was laughing about his physical issues. "Like you would know how I feel now!"

Temari didn't stop laughing, but instead pulled him down on his neck and hugged him sisterly. "Oh you don't know how sorry I am to make you take this stuff for years, not seeing the most simple resolution."

"Like you ever cared about my privacy." He groaned, trying to get out of Temari's grip.

She still was giggling when she let go of her brother. "We shall go and get some sleep.." She looked and Sakura, who was almost falling over because tiredly. "Or else we'll have a problem tomorrow morning. I saw the plan on the wall in the hospital, it was like five o' clock in the morning, right? Hey, you moved the stuff into my room, didn't you?" She poked her elbow into Kankuro's side.

"Do I look like I assumed that she would accompany me while sleeping? I'm disappointed in you thinking things like that about me." He shrugged in return, strolling off.

Temari grinned. She was quite happy that the old, shabby house they made living in was small so she had control over everything that happened there. Even if she wished some times that she could move out one day, and if possible not as a old maiden.

---

There are two hard parts when it comes about waking up:

First: Waking up.

Second: Getting up.

Sakura could force herself to do the first one, but she miserably failed at the second part. When she finally was able to kick herself out of bed, landing on the floor with a smash, she cursed herself for working this much the whole day. She knew a shinobi needed rest from time to time, especially since healing people is a lot more difficult and exhausting then killing people.

She noticed that the bed that was about a metre away from her was empty and the cloth layed together with a sickening perfection.

She sighed, working her way through her blanket, asking herself why she was here anyway. This was by far the most ridiculous thing she had done in her whole like, and if it wasn't for Sunagakure, she would have refused to go into a foreign land.

She needed a few minuted to realize that there was a small note lying on Temari's tidy bed, and that the door to the bedroom was opened widely.

Great.

With some trouble, she managed to grab the small paper, reading it once.

Twice.

Before she could even curse herself again for even coming here, she heard a chuckle from the doorframe.

"Pretty amusing how you were caught in you blanket." Kankuro said, looking like he had never slept better and longer, unlike the groggy looking Sakura, who clenched her teeth. "You seem to know that Temari was sent to Konoha again." He chuckled, moving forward with the amused look on his face and offering Sakura to help her up, who only ignored him and got up. "You'll be stuck with my anyway, why don't you try to be nice? You were when you were here two years ago."

"People change." Sakura said, having bitter thoughts because Temari was sent away, leaving her with her brother, who was still a little scary in his black clothes and his freaky tanuki-painting. "Just as much as you don't appricate people touching you, I don't like being too close to people also." She smiled, a little bitter.

Kankuro shrugged. If she wants it that way, he wouldn't go against it. It would be too much trouble to change her mind, and if he was faithful with himself, he was far too lazy.

"I'm her replacement." He explained, moving out of the room again. "And if I might give you a tip...you shouldn't run around in you nightdress like this."

He quickly moved out of the room when a sandal was flying after him.

---

Awkward.

That's the way Sakura felt when she was walking down the streets this morning. Life was already pulsating in the streets, and everytime she and Kankuro where walking past people, they gave them strange looks, and started to whisper things to each other.

She only could assume that there were two reasons why they were doing this, and she only liked one of them. Actually she hoped that they were looking because Kankuro was still a scary sight, because he wasn't seen walking around in the village often. Especially when he was not hopping from roof to roof happily.

She sighed in a more angry than relieved way, while her company didn't even seem to notice or mind the looks, keeping his expression stoic and his eyes fixed forward to the end of the street.

While Sakura was trying to move her attention to the sand that was gathering in her sandals, he gave her a light poke with his elbow, not moving his eyes towards her. "You shouldn't care that much about people looking at you."

Even if she knew he didn't look at her, Kankuro seemed to notice her angry expression, grinning and putting his hands into his pockets. "It's because we never had a Leaf staying here for more than a few weeks. You're a foreigner, everyone can see that because of your looks."

"Do you have anything against the way I look?" She hissed, not receiving a spoken answer, but just another impish grin. It surely angered her the be looked down on from this guy, who acted like he had forgotten why he was still alive and not dinner for the worms.

"Ungrateful rat." She mumbled.

"Thank you." Was the reply she got, making her twitch.

She never planned to speak her thoughts out loud.

**---**

**Sorry for getting rid of Temari like this, but things happen some times, you know XD**

**So, Sakura is stuck with Kankuro, and not happy about this.**

**Yeah, a cheap idea, but hell...this in fanfiction, and I'm known to be a cheap, lousy author XD**

**(Can ANYONE tell me why KankuroXSakura is so unpopular? There are SO many themes you can write about...sigh.)**


	5. Day One

"That's lousy if I don't even get a seat." Kankuro planted himself on the ground outside, next to the entrance of the hospital. "Such guarding duties are stupid if the guard has to sit on the ground like a dog that was tied onto a post outside."

Sakura tried hard to repress the aggressions that were building up upon Kankuro's complaining. She tried to think about nice things.

Sparrows.

Flowers.

Rainbows.

"You know, I can see it coming, I'm going to get a sunburn because I have to sit outside from morning until evening." He mockingly threw in, noticing her attempts to keep calm. He couldn't wait for the moment when she would start throwing things after him, like she did with with the sandal not so long ago.

Annoying girls was such a nice hobby, to get them boiling with anger mostly ended with uncontrolled attempts to break his spine.

Girls are cute when they are angry, but most of them didn't know, and it was better to let them think they behave like monsters.

"See..." Sakura pressed through her teeth. "..I don't even have a chair to sit on myself, so you won't die also."

Kankuro just waved over his shoulder in return, looking at the sky which shone in some strange mix of pink and orange clouds, reavealing a big, red sun that was rising behind them.

Getting up this early was sure stupid. He couldn't get along with the though that he would have to watch over this moody girl now, and he cursed that Temari was just leaving her duty to him in order to travel to Konoha and back, like a pendulum.

She just didn't want to be stuck at Suna.

It angered him a big deal, he knew the liked going to Konoha mainly because she could meet this Shikamaru guy again, and she didn't even tried to deny that she liked him a lot.

He couldn't get rid of the feeling that it was like he was argueing with Shikamaru about who Temari liked better, only that the winner was fixed already.

Kankuro clenched his teeth, before he was pulled out of his thoughts by Sakura.

"Stop daydreaming, you can help me to rearrange the stuff here, so the capacy is higher." She shoved a mattress to the side, and threw a look at Kankuro, who didn't even bothered to move a finger.

"Do it yourself." He dryly replied. "I don't need to help girls who..."

A sudden sound a slashin through the air and the crack of stone made him go silent for a second. "...aim with scalpels at me!" He pulled the instrument out of the crack in the wall, looking at the bent metal.

Sakura was looking at him with angry eyes, her fists were settled on her hips. "Help me or I will test some of them on your body, at full conscience!"

The puppeteer gave the bent scalpel another look before sighing and moving himself up.

That would be a long day, being caged with a fury in the slaughterhouse.

---

Eti gave Kankuro, who was again sitting outside, a concerned look. "Are you alright, Mr Kittyears?" She kneeled before him, trying to get a look at his face, after she pushed Yaya inside the hall.

"Don't...call me that, you little rat." He glared, pointing inside. "The woman from Konoha is a beast, that's why I'm pretending to be occupied with sleeping or something."

"Strange." Eti patted Kankuro's head. "She always seemed kind to me yesterday, sempai. Maybe you angered her."

"Don't tell me she has you two as her students." He eyed inside where Yaya was talking to Sakura. "Hell...I think Gaara created a monster."

Eti moved herself up and shrugged. "I think there's a reason why Kazekage-sama set her up with us, and not with any of the other Genin."

"So you're not quite as stupid as I though you are, Eti." Kankuro yawned. "You two had the most potential, and the best Chakra-control out of our Genin who wished to take a medial career."

"That's far too easy." Eti replied coldly, crossing her arms. "I think there's more behind it, but nobody is willing to tell us."

The puppeteer blinked. He eyes the girl with the short, black hair up and down, trying to remember if she was this rational some years ago already when she still was a little girl. "I hate people who are suspicious of everything." He scratched his nose, trying not to ruin his paintings. "You were like six years old already. Just go in and do your job, or your cousin will make more progress than you."

Eti shrugged, walking away slowly, but stopped and turned around. "Yes, there was something sempai." She nodded towards Yaya who watched Sakura mending a open fracture. "I would try to be nicer, she's really fond of you."

Kankuro gave her a questioning look, quite amused that almost every women in the village had to look up to look into his eyes.

"Yaya, not sensei, moron." Eti strolled away to join her cousin and her teacher, leaving a Kankuro behind whose thoughts were playing with suicide.

There was a girl who was twelve or thirteen and who had the hots for him.

Oh joy.

As if it wasn't enough that all nice women had lost their hearts to his younger brother, who wasn't even able to understand clearly why he was so popular.

And if it wasn't enough that he couldn't break any heart with the way of the shinobi he had chosen.

No, people would also think he's a pedophile now.

Yes, he thought to himself, making a miserable face, yes, my life sucks.

---

"He's napping." Sakura said, quite disappointed. "What a man."

She and her two apprentices were looking at Kankuro who was leaning against the wall, making snoring sounds while the sun was going down slowly.

"That's the way of life. Women do the hard work and men relax and watch them working." Eti said, pinching Kankuro's nose in order to wake him up. "And I don't expect anything else of Mr Kittyears."

Sakura chuckled as the young man was gasping for air suddenly. "You're so getting on my nerves." He poked his finger at Eti's forehead, who was laughing about his unhappy face.

Yaya watched that scene with mixed feelings, mirrored on her face. She bit her lower lip not to laugh at the argueing ones in front of her, trying not to offend anyone.

"So, what do you girls think." Sakura pulled Eti away from Kankuro, who was close to ripping her head off. "I think you can go home now, it's really quiet. If something comes, I'll take care of it."

Yaya squeaked in happiness, while Eti was pulling her away from the hospital. "Then I'll see you tomorrow, sensei. Yaya, shut up already, you're ruining my ears!"

Sakura sighed as those two were walking away. She had imagined her first day to be more lonely or less funny, but those two girls were far too lively to make her feel like this. She sure wished to know what her friends were doing right now, or if they even knew that she was gone.

"Hey." Kankuro poked her. Again. "Don't judge me for daydreaming of you're doing it yourself."

"What do you care anyway?" She snapped, only receiving a bored smile. "As if you knew what Im thinking right now, Mr Kittyears."

"What's with those kitty-thing!" Kankuro roared, ripping his cowl off his head, ruffling through his messy hair. "You're such a bitchy one."

Sakura shrugged and snickered. "I only like the idea." She waved him in. "Now, come on, if it's that uncomfortable to sit around outside, you can sit on the desk or something."

"I totally refuse to go inside hospitals again." Kankuro answered with a bitter voice.

Sakura sighed annoyed. She knew it would be such a long year if she had to hang out with this guy all day as a guard.

A really long year.

---

"So why so you have the key?" Sakura asked as Kankuro pulled the door of the hall close and the closing mechansim snapped shut.

"Because it belongs to our village, smart..." He said rather bored. Or better to be said, he was hungry, and not willed to search for some shop that was still opened. "I have a stupid question, and you have to answer it, or else we'll be in trouble in terms of money or health."

Sakura gave him a strange look. "Whatever it is, I'm not that kind of girl."

"What?" He scratched the back of his head. "I just wanted to know if you can cook."

"No."

"Great."

"Why do you ask anyway? Can't you?" She felt a sudden nausea at the thought of him, wearing a pink apron with lace. Ack.

"If I do, we'll suffer from the toxic that will spreadin our bodies, due to me being unable to understand recipes." He stated, looking straight into the streets. "Let's go find a shop for dumplings or something, I'm starving and I'm not in the mood to poison you bitch with my creations."

Sakura sighed. "I think I'll have to get into this as long as Temari is gone?"

"Women into the kitchen." He grinned, his voice mocking her again before patting her head. "Let's go, or I'm going to eat some kids."

"I could imagine that." Sakura pushed him aside a little.

"They taste like chicken, only a little more bitter." He pushed his hands into his pockets and just started walking, without waiting for Sakura to catch up.

**---**

**Author's notes are some mean thing, aren't they? I wanted to write something here, but I forgot.**

**Well, I totally screwed up Kankuro's personality, but it's hard to extract how he would react from the behaviour he has usually.**

**But guys at his age always like mocking girls, I noticed that so...well, that's it. I hope you'll read the next chapter also (since you made it this far.).**


	6. It took a whole week

"How do you do that?" Kankuro blinked unbelieving, looking at Sakura who was eating like a pack of wolves. "I understand when I eat like I have no end in my stomach, but you're a...girl."

Sakura just looked at him, giving him a glare and finishing her dumpling before answering his surprised, yet not mean question.

"I can't go away and eat something while I'm working, why are you surprised?" She downed a bit beansoup before talking on. Or better, she shot him another glare.

Kankuro shrugged, still looking a bit surprised. He obviously couldn't see why he hadn't been able to think about the easiest solution, and he hated it.

"You shouldn't really do it like this." He just said dryly.

"One can't be like you and eat all day." She grabbed a bun filled with beanjam. "Are you living in the fridge?"

"Stop this, I'm not fat." He said, giving her an angry look. "And I'm not eating all day, keep in mind, I'm by far taller than you."

"Right, having a babyface isn't bad at all." She took another sip of her soup. "I bet the girls in this village think it's really cute and are after you day and night."

Kankuro broke into laughter making her choke. He wiped a tear from his eye, and looked over to her again. "That's what I would wish for. But I'm not cool and elite enough, and what woman would like to share a bed with me and a puppet."

"Eew, don't tell me you're sleeping with your toiletpaper-wrapped-toupé thing in one bed!" She exclaimed with a disgusted face. "That's...ew, that gross."

The reward for her reaction was a mocking grin, followed by a grip around her shoulder with his arm, as he raised the other one. "Hey, I want to pay for the two of us."

Sakura broke into coughing, trying to get out of the molesting hug. "Just who do you think you are!"

"Someone, who wants to use the possibility to save some money by pretending that you're my girlfriend - don't get me wrong, I don't like you either, but I'm short on cash, little spitting snake."

Sakura roared and tried to hold still while the host was counting the money.

Hell she felt uncomfortable being squished by this undue guy, which she now could also consider a pervert who likes cuddling his puppets.

The second the host turned away with the money, she almost ripped herself off him.

"See, that's why I'm so unpopular. It seems like I'm a pervert, and one that's wearing make-up also. That's not sexy, but it doesn't matter, I love my reputation." He was silent for a moment. "But you know, you're not the bomb too."

"I hate you." Sakura said in a manner someone would say 'See, that's a bathtub full of organs. Man they're smelling already.'.

"I see we'll get along." Kankuro threw her a wink, seeing her angered face and that she was ready to jump into his face if he says one more thing. "Let's go home, or someone will notice that you look ugly when you're angry."

Sakura pullerd her hair the whole way home, holding back various insults that would have made even this puppeteer that liked mocking girls blush, which she of course didn't know.

---

"Stop staring already and tell me what it was about!" Sakura suddenly yelled while Kankuro tried to open up the door that had sucked up the damp.

He just gave her a confused look, as if he didn't know what she was really talking about. "What?"

"This awful show you did back then." She said, crossing her arms and giving him a pissed look. "Thanks to you, I feel undbelievable molested now."

He shrugged, kicking the door open after some more tries of opening it up the peaceful way. "The owner of this store is strange, he usually charges higher prices for women and lower ones for men, and then again he'll almost give his stuff away for free if there's a couple eating at his store."

"That's ridiculous." Sakura said, clenching her teeth, still mad about the embarrassing show. "Still I don't like being touched at all, so.."

"...so what? Will you try to jump up on me, biting me knee or something like that?" He patted her head, grinning with the expression of the winner.

"...I'll show you that I can break your hand at seventynine different places, rendering you useless for being a shinobi unless you beg me on your knees to fix it again." She snapped, walking past him without giving him another look.

"You're not tough enough to do that anyway." He responded after shaking off the last bit of horror.

---

"She's still mad at you, sempai?" Eti asked Kankuro, who was relaxing in the doorframe again. "It's been six days already."

Kankuro shrugged. Sakura had started to ignore him since that incident at the dumpline-shop, and that was six days ago already. Not that he cared about it, it was just pretty uncomfortable to have her around all day, without talking or any other interaction.

"She's pissed because I'm a poor guy." He replied to the kunoichi, throwing a look over to Sakura. "I don't really care, it's not like she's a good buddy or somethin' like that."

Eti sat down in front of him, looking over to Yaya and Sakura, who had a break next to the surgery, munching cookies and talking about something. "Maybe you should just say that you're sorry."

"Never, I didn't do anything wrong."

"Well, you hugged her in a really personal way, and not every girl is..." Eti couldn't go on under Kankuro's mad looks, so she just waved her hand in a excusing way. "Maybe you can get her be nice with you if you do her a favor. Something that could be good for you too."

He leaned back while Eti was talking, thinking already while she still spoke out her idea. It would sure be better if he could get along with her somehow. If Temari came back sooner or later, she wouldn't be too pleased with finding a small war in her home. He also didn't like the idea that his sister could smash her heel onto his feet, although she was smaller than him, she could use unbelievable amounts of strength to make him behave.

"Well, I guess I know what's a good idea." He mumbled while standing up, leaving Eti eating her Onigri alone.

"He just went off." Eti said when Sakura was coming to the door, wondering why their guard just fled. "He said he had some urgent things to settle."

Sakura growled, her eyes narrowed. "Just as I thought, this slacker." She rammed a scalpel into the wall, creating just another crack.

"Well, I wouldn't say this." Eti shook her head. "He's not that bad, sensei. Just a little...hot-headed sometimes. You should wait what he's up to do."

Sakura shrugged "Whatever."

While she was trotting in again, Yaya moved her hair back into a ponytail, and walked up to her teacher. "You should just get to know sempai better, sensei. He may be rude and rough, but he loved this village and I bet he's very happy that you're doing this job, even if he would never say it."

"I don't know, you see, I learned to see people who love something in quite another way. He doesn't seem to be too devoted." Sakura handed Yaya a package of bandages.

"That's because...well, we've been at peace, and when those attacks begun, he wasn't quite employed. You know he's no spy, and he's quite to specialized in long-range-fighting, sensei!"

"Kazekage-sama assumed that there's a mole operating somewhere in Sunagakure." Eti threw in. "But seriously, Yaya..we shouldn't discuss this matter here."

Sakura sighed, as she understood what this discussion was about. "Well..." She said, pointing at a injured shinobi on the other side of the room, whose bandaged were soaked with blood. "..well, change this poor guys bandages, and give him something to set im asleep. And then we're going to mix up the painkiller for the pregnant woman who was here this morning. We shouldn't talk about such negative things."

Eti nodded and made her way to the man who was waiting for the medics to take care of him.

"Sensei..why do we learn to change bandages, and not medical jutsu?" Yaya asked meekly. "I think that would be more useful..."

Sakura smiled at the girl. "You know, this basic stuff is something you can easily teach to other people. It's something easy to understand. You'll get to learn how to improve your jutsu soon enough. See, you can improve your jutsu by yourself if you work hard, but it's possible that you'll never be able to teach it because teaching is a hard job. Although sometimes people learn the most when they teach others." She handed her another package of bandages and a ointment. "Even these primitve things help a lot, because the human body learns how to mend wounds itself, but if we only use out jutsu...the body slowly gets used to it and wounds won't heal fast enough anymore. And now go and help Eti, or we'll stand here until next morning."

While Yaya was jogging over to her cousing, a rumbling sound was heard from the door. "Geez." Kankuro sighed, setting two foldable chairs down. "It's getting even hotter."

Sakura just watched what he was doing, while he set up one of the chairs in the doorframe. "What's up? Don't you see that I'm a good boy now? Here, I got you a chair too, so you won't get lame because you have to stand at your desk so much."

"Well...thank you?" She replied a little perplex, looking how he set it up next to the desk. "How does it come?"

He shrugged, throwing himself into the movable furniture. "Why don't we just try to get along, huh? I'm not quite looking for the ass-kicking l'll get from Temari and Gaara if I don't do my job well."

"That's so egoistic." She sighed. "Well...whatever, why not."

"That sounds like you pity me for not having any other friend than Karasu." He grinned. "Quite right, but he's not the talkative kind."

Sakura walked off to her work without another reply. This guy's habits were creeping her out somehow, even if not as much as when she was twelve and first met him while he was picking up Konohamaru by his collar.

---

"I think it's still about a month, it's a pity that you don't remember when you got pregnant." Sakura said, moving her hand from the belly of the pregnant woman in front of her, who was pulling her pigtails tighter.

"That doesn't matter that much, I was just surprised when I couldn't wear my headprotector around my waist anymore." She laughed, putting a package into her pocket. "Thanks for the tea, it's such a nice thing of the Hokage to send us such a nice medic."

"Sure thing, people are people, you know." Sakura smiled. "Well, I hope we won't meet up before give birth to that worm."

The woman waved her hand at Sakura.

Kankuro in the meanwhile was reading some kind of miniature-sized book, while sitting in 'his' door, not paying attention to anything that happened around him. Or at least it seemed so.

"Bye Kankuro!" The woman happily said while walking past him, smiling.

He waved after her, with an unusual friendly expression on his face. "Get through it, Mai." He called after her, before facing his book again. "I didn't even expect her to recall my name. Hey, I'm famous."

"You wish for." Sakura answered, washing her hand and throwing him a sidelook.

"I've been on a borderpatrol with her once." He changed paged noisefully. "That was when she wasn't pregnant. Or at least when she didn't look like it."

Sakura cackled. "I hope I don't have to assume that you're the one who's responsible for it."

"That's like if you blame a vegetarian for eating all the beef." He snarled "Don't be stupid. I'm not silly enough to make my financial situation even worse."

Sakura stretched her back. "I didn't say so." She looked around, watching Eti and Yaya trying to calm a small child down that had hat scratched his knee open and was now crying and trying to hide in its mother's lap.

"They should learn how to do it by themselves." She just muttered, pulling the bow on her aprong tighter and walking towards another patient who was waiting.

Kankuro in the meanwhile felt like there was someone hammering an iron nail into his head, so he just clapped his book shut and marched towards the child that was crying so bitterly, making the two Genin resignate slowly, and even the mother wasn't doing anything else than apologizing to the two girls that her son was so much trouble.

Sakura was watching the situation with one eyes, more or less concerned about what the puppeteer was up to.

Her attention, and everyone elses, was locked to the scene that was playing when Kankuro got onto his knees, facing the child that watched him with some fear.

"Shut up, or I'm going to lock you into Kuroari." He said loudly and threatening, and even if this kid didn't understand what he was talking about, it froze on the point, letting Eti and Yaya do their work.

When he walked back to his place, he noticed Sakura's confused looks, but just shrugged at her.

"You just have to make them think that you'll use force."

**---**

**O-kai. You see, I'm getting my chapters a little longer now that the first part of trilogy is done and I can focus on this fic more until I start the second part. :D**

**Joy! **

**I want to see Kankuro as a babysitter :D**


	7. In memento

"Hey there sempai!" Eti shouted all over the room "May you come and lend me an ear?"

Kankuro shrugged first, knowing that whenever the clever Eti had somthing to tell it wasn't a good thing - just the same thing as if he and Temari were agreeing once every blue moon. It ended in a desaster.

"What now, you unnerving little beast?" He got down on his knees to face Eti. "I'm not in the mood for your ideas."

"Nothing like that. I'm not as mean as you are." She pushed some strands of hair behind her ears. "You don't have anything to do at the moment, do you?"

"Forget it." He turned away. "I have to do some really important thing. Inspecting the doorframe, and maybe I'll even clean the windows, but I won't do you any favor."

"But I owe you something if you help me now."

He thought over it a moment, trying to find out what kind of trick could be behind the whole thing, but failing miserably.

"So, what do you want? Just thinking about it gives me nausea." He responded after a while. "I hope it's nothing I'll regret later on."

"Actually it's not help. I have a letter for you from your sister. Shall I read it aloud?" Eti chuckled, but handed over the letter when she saw the mean glare Kankuro gave her. "Well, have fun with it. I arrived some hours ago when you were buying lunch with sensei."

"Great that nobody tells me after all." He snarled, but waited until the girl strolled away and he made sure that Sakura and Yaya somewhere else in the hall weren't able to notice it either.

He cursed the one who had taken the letter with him, making him responsible for whatever might be in it, and he expected bad news, as he did always.

Maybe Temari was dead. But that would mean she couldn't write a letter either.

Striking through the last thought, he ripped the envelope open, pulling out a letter written on a paper with interesting print. Even if he couldn't think about what kind of print it was.

His eyes started flying over Temari's bad handwriting (which must be running in the family, as he suspected already), just when Sakura approached him, wondering why he was sitting on the ground with a face like seven days of rain.

---

A wave of her hand couldn't wake him up from his thoughts, so Sakura seriously wondered what ever was written in this letter that made the stoic Kankuro freeze all of the sudden. She shrugged before poking his nose so he had to look up, but something made her feel like he didn't even realize that she was trying to provoke him into telling what was in this letter.

"Remember my words, if I get this guy as a brother-in-law, I'm going to kill myself and write into my last letter that I blame my sister for making my life depressing and bad. And I will make sure that she will never get happy again."

"You're talking confusion, man." She layed her head to the side, giving him her best questioning look. "What's up?"

"Eh?" He gave her a curious look. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Sakura sighed. "You don't look so good. Is it alright?"

He shrugged, shook his head and proceeded to smash the letter into a small ball. "Temari will stay in Konoha for a few more weeks. That means I am stuck with you for a few more weeks. And that means that she's leaving all the boring stuff to me again. Which means that I hate cleaning windows." He got up onto his feet again and stretched a little. "I didn't mean to offend you, but that definatly not the way I want to spend the next year, sitting in a hospital and questioning the meaning of life, you know. There are more exiciting things to do."

"Would you like to change duties with me?" Sakura picked up a bloody, old bandage from the ground, throwing it into the trashcan next to her.

"Never." Was the short answer she received.

"I see, I like straight answers. So what do you plan to do to go against your horrible destiny? I'm just trying to build up a conversation, I've got nothing to do, but I can't send those gals home yet." She nodded towards Yaya and Eti, little amused about the fact that somehow the ground looked like a awful mess. The girls made miserable faces and started cleaning at once, trying not to wake their teachers anger.

"Suicide." He replied in a harsh tone. "And I'll do it now. What kind of silly question was this supposed to be?"

"No need to rip me to pieces." She shrugged, turning around. "Well then, go and die alone and in vain. I don't care."

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that!" He hopped after her. "I just don't like it when she stays in Konoha for longer than a few days, because I know one day she'll come back, telling me that she's going to get married and that she'll move there. And then I'll be all alone here by myself, with a workaholic brother that doesn't need me and a married sister far away that doesn't like me to stay with her because I would be a bad rolemodel for her fivehundret children and..."

"Aren't you...overreacting a bit?" Sakure tried to slow him down a little. "Isn't it a bit early to think about this?"

"Would you like to place a bet?" He asked, being provoked within his pride. "Nah?"

"Sure.." She shruggen. "What's it about?"

"About the time it will take until Temari gets engaged to this 'Oh-I-can-use-my-shadow-as-sunscreen"-Guy! I'll say it's withing this year, and if it takes longer, you'll win!"

"Now, what's the trick behind this? What are the prices?" Sakura began to question his motives when his grin grew larger and more mocking. "It's something neither of us will like, isn't it?"

"If I win, I want to make her feel just as I do, so..." He paused. "The bet is set anyway, isn't it?"

"I won't back off." Sakura sighed, looking at Kankuro, waiting for a decision. "So what now?"

"Well, If you lose, you're going to be fiancée, even if only for show." Kankuro coldly declared, putting his arms behind his head. "So, what do you want if you win this thing?"

"How the hell can you be so cool about this?" She shrieked rather shocked. "That's nothing to bet about...!"

Kankuro laughed and petted her head, trying to calm her down, even if her reaction scared him a little. "It's not like you have to run around and tell anyone, is it? So just try to live with it."

"Just tell me why you don't like Shikamaru. That's everything I want to know, I won't ask for anything if I win if you tell me now."

"Is it that hard to see? He's taking away my sister. Imagine what their children will be like: smart little monsters who are going to torture me with the knowledge about impossible things, and smashing me with miniature fans." Kankuro sighed, putting his hand over his eyes. Life was hard.

Sakura couldn't add anything to that, the thought about miniature Temaris and Shikamarus, conquering Kankuro with their miniature fans and paralyzing him with their shadows was taking over her mind, and she tried hard to stop herself from laughing out loud.

But failed.

"That's not funny, you know." He said dryly, obviously not amused. "Be happy you don't have siblings. As far as I know."

"Well, I have a mother who's disappointed in me, that's enough." Sakura wiped away some tears, trying to stop laughing. "So, it's a deal then. I don't mind to be mind-raped by a fake relationship. Better then having none."

---

"A package for me?" Sakura pulled her head up from the strange coffee mixture Kankuro had given her, and which she didn't trust at all - it smelled more like a mix of peppermint, coffee and something she could not define. She was just happy that the nightshift wouldn't start in the next few hours.

"Somehow, I guess." He threw it on the small table, not caring about what could be inside. "It's quite strange how the much traffic there is between Konoha and Sunagakure. Funny somehow."

"Well, if you don't know, many have taken residence in Konoha already..." Sakura said while ripping open the small package. "What..."

"What what? Are there socks inside or what?" He eyed into the package. "Nah."

"Sandals..." Sakura pulled out a pair of black, high heeled sandals, carrying the obvious mark of Tsunade's tastes in clothing. She sighed, placing them in front of her, before pulling out a folded, green paper.

She slowly opened it, only to let in fall down with a squeal, but picking it up quickly.

Kankuro had to cover his ears from the shrill shriek, clenching his teeth together in sudden disgust of this noise. "What's wrong now? You're going to kill be before this year is over, I know it, and you're gonna do it in a psychological way. Cruel. Cold."

"Don't complain, look at this." She handed him a rather large photo. "Remember."

He looked quite some time at the photo, before putting it face-down on the table. "Shameful. I don't like this picture."

"Those are all the candidates that survived the Forest of Death years ago...what's so shameful about this?" Sakura started to rammage through the left-over things in the package, waiting for a response, but not actually expecting one.

"Because back then I would have killed you if you were to stand in the way, but the whole..incident was so shameful."

"I see." Sakura's eyes were flying over another letter, her face going pale. "Ah me. That's like Ino, screaming at me over a letter."

"Ino? Who the hell is Ino again?" Kankuro flapped the Photo around again. "The cute one with the blonde ponytail or the one with the short hair?"

Sakura shook her head. "Why is it that all you guy start drooling over Ino, even if the photo of her is old? Ino is the one with the ponytail and the chilly eyes."

"Do you see me drooling, stupid woman?" He shook his head grabbing into his hair with one hand. "But I can give you a very, very, very exact reason why all of my kind seem to like her. Interested?"

"Because you are all perverts who like curvy girls." Sakura looked down at the photo, smiling as if lost in some memories.

There was a sudden silence, with Kankuro feeling like there was a gigantic hammer crushed into his spine, leaving him bleeding and dying on the ground, while Sakura was happily frolicking over her photo. Such an unfair life.

"...it was a close one." He quickly said, hiding his disappointment. Why in the world can't women just once NOT know what's going on in the heads of the poor species called men? "It's because she makes herself look older, right? Now stop asking such things. Be happy that those sandals make your legs look longer, or won't ever get someone to look at you."

"Now, the boy's pissed." Sakura sighed. "Right, I just would like you to stop looking at my legs, will you?"

"I will." Kankuro said dryly. "But I didnt have a choice. You're as flat as a board, so there wasn't an alternative."

Sakura blinked before she realized that he was trying to provoke her, and she strangely didn't know what to say as a reply.

**---**

**So another chapter. I'm sorry, it's short, but I promise that it'll get more interesting after this one. The problem is, now that my computer is fixed, I have school again. I don't have that much time...but I'll do my best. Booyaka!**


	8. Thirty

Days are running by quickly, as Sakura had to notice. She didn't expect her stay in the Sand to be such a busy, but nice time, after all.

One day, actually thirtyfive days from when she arrived, she was working in the hospital once again, this time with some more special patient.

"I told you before that there won't be any damage when I'm done with it, so stop complaining already, will you?" She slapped Kankuro's hand, which was more or less painfully broken, but could be healed without any signs of it left. If he would have stopped moving around and complaining about how painful her methods are.

"You don't understand" he pressed through his teeth. "Those things are precision tools, if anyone finds out, I'm not sure if I'll be able to continuw being a - would you like to be a little more gentle with my hands, please?"

Sakura clenched her teeth and pressed her fingertips on the broken bones, making him whimper in pain. "How manly you stand the pain." She chuckled. "Well, well. I think I'll just forget that I had to treat you, even if you caused this whole thing yourself."

"I didn't invite this chunk stone to fall off the wall and land onto my hands." He looked down on his hand while the green healing aura was taking care of his bones and mending them. I was a strange feeling, like when she removed that poison from his body and cured him with her antidote.

"And you'll just don't write it down? That's not legal, you know."

"Who cares? And don't tell me it would be your duty to report, you just want to save your ass." She said when her chakra-glow disappeared. Carefully she began to move each of his fingers, testing if everything that was smashed was mended again, and if the bones were hardened.

"It tickled somehow, you know." He commented after she was done with her check-up, instructing him to move his fingers a little. "But it's as good as new...I didn't know that's possible."

"That's because your nerves are sending signals to your brain again, and because the blood is flowing again. Don't worry, that's quite normal, it will be gone in a few minutes." Sakura said and looked around in the substitute hospital, sighing. "This place is so not good for being used as a medical institution."

Kankuro looked around, quite happy that Sakura had sent the two girls home already, because he couldn't stand the two of them for too long - he still had a trauma from when Temari was hitting puberty, and he surely wouldn't loose it until he would be old and grey.

"No money to build up the old one again. At least I guess it's something like that, I don't like theoretical stuff." He shrugged, strechting his upper body all over the only desk in the room while sitting in front of it. "Such a boring job. I don't like bodyguarding, did I tell you? I'm not suited for it."

"Well, you could also sit at home and become a fat, old, grumpy man." She snapped, feeling like there was aggression put towards her, although she was wrong.

"Don't be so aggressive, will you?" He yawned, moving his gaze towards the window, only to avoid looking at the pissed female.

"I'm not aggressive." Sakura replied. "I just can't look through the true meanings of the things you say."

Kankuro nuzzled into his sleeves sleepily. "See, that's why I try not to get involved with girls - they all think I'm trying to make fun of them. And then they get those violent fantasies and try to kill me or something. By the way," he moved himself up again. "we should go home now, shouldn't we?"

Sakura just nodded, not sure if the things he said were only said to make fun of her after all. She didn't like his mocking attitude at times, and she hated the way he was speaking his mind - but after all, he still was the best company she could get in the village. The young women were either overly concerned about how they could manage that the dryness wouldn't get into their hair (making it stubborn like Temari's) or they were serious tradeswomen, or even worse, kunoichi who looked down on the medic for not getting into fighting business at free will - which slightly made Sakura wonder if they knew that she had been forbidden to get into fights as long as she stays at Sunagakure, and that she just followed Tsunade's wish not to stick her nose in the personal matters of the Village Hidden in the Sand as long as it isn't war and as long as she isn't ask to fight by their side as an ally.

Sometimes she was amused by the fact that everyone seemed to think that her job was easy, until they landed in her territory, and until they realized that they had to trust her with their lives.

Maybe she just thought Kankuro was good company because of their strange deal.

That she wanted to find out as much as possible before she would lose the bet.

Or it was just that he tried to understand her work, even if it was just a reaction to his boredom.

---

Some hours later, when it was late night already, and when one would have been able to hear the sands shifting outside, because nothing made any noises, and no drunks were walking the nearby streets, and no baby was crying in the neighborhood, and when Sakura and also her bodyguard were fast asleep in their beds, with no intention to open up their eyes again until early morning, dreaming about random nonsense and all the cliché-stuff they both hated, there was a heavy knock on the door, waking the poor puppeteer from his almost tight sleep.

It should be clear that he wasn't too amused about the fact that somebody was stupid enough to knock on this household's door in the middle of the night when a normal person should be asleep.

When it knocked again, he grabbed into his messy hair. "Alright now, I'm coming, just stop it!" he barked, jumping on his feet, almost stumbling over the far too long pants he was wearing, before reaching the door.

Furiously he opened up, only to be surprised to see Temari standing in front of it, looking angry and relieved at the same time. "You surely took your time, man." She said, shoving him aside. "I just came back, and I already have an emergency for you, so wake up Sakura before I'm going to do it."

"What deer has ridden you to be so nervous?" He tried to get together what his sister just said. "Emergency? She doesn't have a shift right now."

Temari grabbed him by his arms and began to shake him violently, waking him up completely. "It's an emergency because I say so! Now go and wake her!"

"So I guess your period occured, huh?" He quickly made his way to the room of the two young women while Temari was stuck between hitting her brother with her fan or setting her luggage down.

When Kankuro knocked on the worn, wooden door, a squished Sakura opened up, looking tired and worn out, and not able to do anything at the moment.

Actually, Kankuro would have been afraid if she would be treating him right now.

"Get dressed and brush your hair – you look like you kissed an elephant in there. Temari says there's an emergency and that this person seems to want you badly." He ruffled her hair, receiving only a tired, annoyed look and a nod.

"Whatever..." she pulled the strap of her nightdress up and slammed the door into his face. Happy that it didn't hit his nose, he turned around to his sister again, looking at her. "So what's up?"

"I met Mai's brother on my way, he wanted to get here himself, you know. But then I decided that I can get Sakura too. It looks like her baby's coming now and that she wants Sakura to deliver it. Man, you'll have some fun there." Temari grinned, pulling on her ponytails.

"I certainly don't want to see how she delivers a baby!" He complained loudly, making Temari laugh with burning passion.

"Don't be shy and get dressed. If I'll have a baby one day, you'll be there to see it too. Now hurry." She pushed him towards this small room where he held residence, with a wide grin on her face.

"Don't you dare to have children one day – I don't want to be killed by nieces and nephews who wield large fans and can manipulate shadows." Were his last words before she closed the door behind him.

---

"Deliver a baby?" Sakura asked while they were hurrying to the place where Mai lived, trying to blend out that she hardly recognized Kankuro without the cowl and his facepaint. "I'm not a midwife, damnit."

"Calm down, I don't think that you are unable to do it – the women who act as a midwife in this town are said not to be good anyway. Don't ask why I know this." He yawned and streched while walking.

"You know it because you don't want be to have doubts, that's everything." she handed him her bag with all this medic-stuff he didn't know by name. "If I need help, I'll instruct you how to."

"I'm definatly not getting close to a woman who's giving birth to a child." He insisted, pointing down the street. "We're almost there."

"You're ashamed to see how a baby is delivered!" Sakura laughed out loud. "That's so not you."

"Stop talking like I'm your partner in crime, girl!" He snarled at her annoyed. "I'm not one of your stupid assistants, so keep me out of this, will you?"

"Sure, just stop insulting my profession." She said with a suddenly dry voice.

In front of one of the smaller houses, there was a man standing, wearing a Chuunin-Uniform of Sunagakure, and having a chamaeleon sitting on his shoulder. His face was more or less concerned when he saw the pink-haired kunoichi heading towards him.

"So finally." He said, and Kankuro noticed that he had forgotten how Mai's brother was called. He decided to refer to him as the unfriendly guy when he would have to talk about him to Sakura. "Go in there...well.." his looks briefly spotted Kankuro, widening in surprise, but getting back to the dumb look they had before. "...I mean please."

Kankuro was slightly amused how the attitude of this guy changed when he noticed that someone with a higher rank than him was coming with the medic, and that it was someone with quite a reputation. Slimy bastard.

---

Kankuro was quite happy that he was left out from the action that was going on inside.

Anyway he wasn't too happy that he had to share the space on the stairs in front of the house with the Unfriendly Guy. He knew that it was only his presence that kept this guy from treating the medic like dirt, and he was quite happy that he could rub his rank under his nose with every word he was exchanging with him.

When there was another scream that followed the previous five ones, he was asking himself already if Sakura was murdering the poor woman inside. He couldn't imagine how Mai was feeling, not even the tiniest bit of it.

"I hope she'll have a healthy child, I don't think this med.." Unfriendly guy was cut off by yet another scream.

"So if you don't trust her, why did you call her in the first place, man?" Kankuro replied with a harsh voice, trying to pull the best of the situation. He could blame the guy for everything now, and he would surely do it.

"I didn't. Mai did, I would rather have called some midwife from this village rather than some foreign girl who I don't know."

"You surely are a slimy bastard." The puppeteer replied without regretting his choice of words. "If it weren't for her, we would be out of medical personal sooner or later, think about it."

"I rather don't talk back on this, but" Unfriendly guy said with a motionless voice. "I believe your trust in her just results out of your sympathy for the Leaf."

"Do me a favor and shut up, you're wasting my precious oxygene." Kankuro replied, scratching his neck and looking bored.

"Somebody of your rank should better have more polite way to speak, or else you'll have problems one day."

"As if you would know." Kankuro got on with his bored look. This guy was getting on his nerves, he was annoying as hell, and his attitude towards foreigner was pissing him off. He was quite happy that he learned how to control his aggressions, because he felt like he needed to thrash this guy one day when noone was watching. Just for being such a slimy bastard.

He didn't know how long he ignored the unfriendly guy when finally the door swung open and Sakura stepped out, looking like she didn't sleep for weeks. She waved her bloody hands and smiled a little. "That's it...everything is okay." She said before sinking to her knees and falling asleep in total exhaustion.

**---**

**Yes, I promised that the next chapter will be more interesting :D**

**Temari's back and she's pissed for no reason, Sakura made her exam as a midwife and Kankuro has fantasies of violence. XD**

**I try not to make too many cliffhangers in the end, but what do you think is going to happen when Sakura wakes up, ne:D**

**Well, we'll see each other next chapter, I guess. :3**


	9. Fever

"We shall discuss this as soon as you have an uterus." Sakura yawned while she was being carried back piggyback. "You just don't know what a pain it can be to be a woman."

"I guess is just as bad as having someone on your back who is going to fall asleep in your hair." Kankuro replied in a mix of sleepiness and aggression.

"Don't be so rude...I feel sick." She mumbled, but didn't see auf shocked her taxi was suddenly.

"Not on my back!" He began to shake her in a bizarre way. "Don't throw up on my back!"

Sakura groaned. "I didn't mean to. I will tell you if I have to, so you can get away a few kilometres."

"You lack sleep." He finally analyzed, trying to keep her safe on his back.

"Clever." She answered half asleep, torturing him with grip of her arm around his neck, minimizing his abilities to breathe properly.

---

Temari covered Sakura with a light blanket. "I bet she won't wake up so early." She smiled and turned around to her brother, laughing at him while his eyes snapped shut now and then. "You should go to bed." She pinched his nose, and Kankuro remembered that she always did this when they were six or seven, and always when she knew something he didn't. Stuff like this bothered him.

"So there's something you're hiding." He scratched the back of his head as if it would solve every of his problems. "You always had hid those things from me."

"Why do think things like that?" She rested her hands on her hips. "I just wanted to show that I still love you like I did many years ago – I'm sorry if you don't get those subtel ways."

"I know you do." He sighed. "It's just that nobody ever shared secrets with me, and I don't think that's fair. And always when you knew something you pinched my nose to provoke me."

Temari laughed. "I don't have now. Come on now, give me hug and then go to bed, like a good boy does."

"Sure mammy." He hugged his sister, feeling a little awkward to be treated like a child again. "I hope the toothfairy will appricate my goodness."

"I'm sure she will. And don't forget to brush your teeth."

---

Maybe it wasn't surprising to himself when Kankuro noticed that when he got to bed while sun was rising, that he wouldn't get much sleep anyway. He still thought about the things Mai's unfriendly brother said. He held respect for every woman that did her ninja-job without hiding behind other people, it didn't matter if she's a medic, a fighter, a spy or a pure assasination-typ – a woman that didn't break down in this job because she was thick-headed enough and could endure to see pain and sufferin was something to be respected and honored in some way.

He could see this type of person in some people he got to know, and also in Temari, who was the most, scary, bossy and manly woman he knew.

Even if Sakura was a medic, she seemed to be strong to him, even if it seemed like she had changed a little from what she was two years before. She was tougher then, her charisma was different.

He couldn't judge her, he knew. He didn't knew what had happened after this time where Chiyo died, and maybe he'd never find out.

Wasn't her hair short when she left Suna then? He remered that she had cut it somehow at the Chuunin-exam. Not that he cared, but things like that are obvious.

He could hear Temari humming somewhere in the house, some children's song about a snake and a cactus. Maybe the was cleaning. She always hummed when she was cleaning the house.

A sudden nausea made him flinch when he thought about the fact that Temari was cooking again, and he wondered why in the world he started to study a cooking book together with Sakura when Temari was going to make he horrible, healthy stuff again.

Damn vegetarians.

When did she turn a vegetarian anyway?

She just suddenly did.

Odd.

---

This day nobody of them went to work, and nobody even asked why. The two girls didn't even come to ask why the hospital was closed, and Temari went to tuck a sign on the door that the responsible medical staff took two days off.

She wasn't surprised that Kankuro and Sakura were still asleep when she came back in the afternoon. She also noticed that Kankuro was sleeping bad because he fell back into snoring, and that Sakura was sleeping tight, because not even the squeaking doors could wake her up from her slumber.

Quite a good thing, as she thought, because she hadn't seen her brother exhausted for quite some time, and it would do him good to use his energy. Temari decided, a little sad because she would have been happy to do it herself, to leave the guarding to him, to work against his great lack of work. She wonderen when he would realize what the purpose of the job was.

Before the blonde could go on with her own thoughts, two loud, hammering sounds were heard at the door, shocking her in the first second before the anger about the unfriendly interruption of the moments she had fpr herself took over. Before she stomped to the door madly, she checked if Sakura or Kankuro had waken up, but dropped the idea after checking on Sakura.

Ripping the door open madly, she was quite surprised that there was nobody there, not even a cat meowing in front of the door as usual.

Instead, there was a folded piece of paper – an expensive brand of paper – nailed onto the door like some kind of sacrifice or some other morbid thing.

Angrily she ripped the paper off the door, questioning if people knew what good manners are, and why the hell some people had to be so damn extra.

But her anger suddenly disappeared as she read the letter inside. Her eyes widened as she slammed the door shut and rushed through the house, kicking the door of her brother's room open.

Shaking him awake until he looked at her groggily, she clenched her teeth.

"The milk is fresh, don't look at me like that." he babbled, scratching his head.

"What milk? Hell, tell me what the hell happened last night at Mai's, and what this letter's supposed to mean!" she screamed with eyes that glowed with anger. Her hand was holding the letter tight, swinging it in front of his nose, where he took it and began to read it slowly.

Then he groaned and let himself fall back into his pillow again.

"That's not meant to be serious, isn't it?" She sighed, covering his face with his hand. "Such trouble just because of something minor like that.."

"Like what!" Temari pulled him up on his shoulders again. "Tell me, now!"

"Uhm." He rubbed his eyes with one hand before talking. "You know Mai's brother, this Unfriendly Guy who has that cameleon with him. I don't know his name, but he started to insult Sakura while she was pulling out Mai's baby, and 't was quite unfair, so I just made him shut up for a while. Geez."

"And that's everything?" She tried to calm a little, rubbing her temples. "Why do people have to be so damn extra."

"How can he tell if she used 'Horrible forbidden techniques' on Mai if he was standing outside with me all the time?"

"Does it matter? These things are nailed on every door in the damn neighborhood, and I promise you, the civilians are much easy to be influenced by such stuff than we are – expect to see a rain of stones going down on her." Temari coughed, stomping outside.

---

Sakura suddenly woke up from her tight sleep when Kankuro slammed down a glass of water and a pill against headache on her nighttable. She gave him a sleepy look before moving herself into a vertical position. "Uh..what time is it?"

"Something like five in the afternoon." He placed himself on Temari's perfectly made bed, ruining it completely. "Do you feel okay again?"

He waited for the answer paitiently, watching her as she downed the pill with the whole glass of water. Incredible.

"Bett than before..don't I have to go working?" she brushed tangled hair out of her face, before feeling up the rings around her eyes. "Great.."

"Don't worry, I know people who have them since they were little." He gave her a grin. "Temari just bought you two free days because you didn't look so good."

"You also don't. Even if you are trying to act it." Sakura yawned, trying to chase away the sleepiness. She really wondered why her body still yearned for sleep, even after all these hourse of healthy slumber. Her knowledge about the human body wouldn't activate, no matter how hard she tried.

She didn't know that Kankuro to her left had almost the same problems, even if they were a bit more primitive. He wanted to make Karasu fetch him something eatable from the kitchen, but instead of walking, the puppet just started to do a prolly dance before collapsing on the floor.

He just assumed that something was wrong with his concentration this day and got up himself just to get some of Temari's bad coffee and Temari's bad eggs – sunny side up. Never use soy sauce on sunny side up.

"Nice.." Sakura stated. "I feel like a wet sack of sand. I even feel too lazy to move my legs out of the bed."

Kankuro shook his head. He had refused to paint his face after some tries. He just couldn't get the painting right – he always looked like an evil clown, and that's just what he didn't want to look like.

"I'll get you coffee – but I warn you, it tastes like old fishsoup."

"I think I already had worse stuff than bad coffee."

"You are sure? I don't want to be responsible if you die or if your organs start collapsing." Kankuro took the glass with him again. "Maybe I should go and get you some dumplings and bean soup."

"I don't know." Sakura looked at him a little concerned. "You look a little pale."

"Surely not as pale as you do. You should eat more, you lost weight." And he disappeared through the door.

---

When Kankuro came back from his little trip, he felt like he had run a five kilometre race against a Cheetah. Something he couldn't understand slightly, because usually he was exhausted so quickly, and not that hard. He may not be the quickest shinobi in the hood, but he didn't consider himself to be untrained like this.

Temari gave him a concerned look when he stumbled across the kitched where she was busy reading a book, stretched out on two chairs.

"I knew you didn't look so good this morning, but that surely is bad." she got up from her seat just quick enough to keep him from falling because his knees were giving in.

"I can pay you tomorrow for a explaination today, Temari." he sunk into a chair, looking miserable. "And I'm not the only one, the shopkeeper told me many people didn't feel well today."

"That doesn't surprise me much, to be true." She handed him her clothtissue so he could wipe the sweat from his forehead. "Sakura also has a high fever, I bet you got it from her and that she got it from one of her patients. That's common."

"So I can go and say thank you to her?" He laughed in a grim way. "I think I shall go to bed."

"I think we can swap beds. You can take mine so you'll have someone to talk to." Temari gentle patted his cheek. "It will be better soon. You won't even be alone, and I'll care for the both of you."

"I'm not a child anymore." Kankuro coughed. "But whatever."

"It's no shame to get sick every now and then. You just hadn't been for a long, long time. The last time I remembered you being sick was when you became Genin and accidently poisoned yourself. You were struck down for some weeks, and you didn't whine one time. So be a man and face your fate!"

Kankuro sighed before getting up and tumbling to the room to infiltrate Temari's bed.

Maybe he could use this unexpected strike of destiny to do something he wanted to for quite some time now:

Get to know more about the kind medic from the Leaf.

**---**

**I'm doing the Lazy-ass-no-jutsu at the moment. I have ideas but no motivation to write. **

**Sorry folks...I feel so tired and worn out at the moment, school is making me a crippled old woman. XD"**

**But I can say I like to write Temari as a loving sister. It always gives me this warm feeling.**


	10. A First Cut

If anything made her happy, it was being back at work.

Sakura couldn't stand to be nursed by the rough Temari anymore, and she couldn't her another one of Kankuro's laments about how bad the world was towards him.

He somehow behaved like everything comes to an end with a simple fever.

Men, she thought while dusting of the new furniture that was generously placed in the substitute for the hospital, wondering when the people who were responsible for this noticed that there was an utter need of beds and chairs and a desk. And some shelves, for that matter.

Sure it has only been two weeks since she had to close down the "clinical pile of trash", as she called it in her thoughts, but at some point, this stuff was placed in there and now had piles of dust on it.

Yaya and Eti were still sick. What a great addition this was, helping all the people who were struck by the same fever alone, and listening to the laments all day.

Well, at least she could work properly now.

"Don't give me these looks, I don't know when the hospital will be completely built up again." she heard Kankuro snarling as he tried to move the beds parallel to each other, out of pure boredom.

"Why in the world do you want them to be parallel to each other?" Sakura finally asked after going of that thought again, figuring how pointless the whole idea was. Stupid, to be exact.

When there was no answer, she felt the urge to smash her head against the wall. With her ear parallel to it, just to make everything in the room look even.

She felt the urge rising when she thought about the possibility that it could be aesthetically appealing, as in her mind, the shinobi who was energically moving beds around now and a sense for pretty things didn't go tohether very well. Or the did go well together, as well as toothpaste and orangejuice.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Sakura turned to her desk again, noticing that she had been dusting a dust-free desk, and feeling rather stupid.

"Hey" Kankuro uttered suddenly. "Where does all that stuff come from anyway?"

She gave him a puzzled look. "I thought you could tell me, maestro. It's not like I saw what happened while I was trapped in bed and forced to listen to your manly whining."

Ignoring her obvious try to slap him with invisible hands, he shrugged and turned around again. "I'll ask Temari when she shows up."

"Messy." Sakura sighed. "I wonder when the first people will notice that they can get drugged again. I wonder if they will start a raid on this place."

"That's what I get paid for." Kankuro sat down on a comfortable looking bed, not caring about his place outside. Actually he didn't like sitting outside, which made him look like he was charging money for the services of his 'doctor'. Irony that made him chuckle, but he preferred to keep his reputation up somehow, even if it meant that he had to walk two more steps to reach the door.

"You get paid for people raiding this place? How corrupt." Sakura snickered and turned to the wall, where three new shelves had found a home, and began to sort all kinds of instruments, tinctures and other stuff in it.

"Now..stupid." She heard the disagreeing roar from behind her. "Of course I get paid for making people not raid on you, my guest of honor."

"When will the idea about the guest of honor fade already?"

"Never, because that's what you are called in the files about guests. And imagine how embarressing it would be if you were hurt because some strange guy decides he has to raid the clinic because he had a fever and couldn't get medicine because you had this fever too."

Sakura blinked, trying to get what Kankuro just said. It was one of the few times she had to detangle a sentence like that, and still it made no sense to her.

"Like tea-time..." she sighed. It was clear to see that this guy was only trying to confuse her somehow because he was bored, and because she couldn't think about how to keep him busy as long as there would be patients showing up sooner or later.

"What?"

"I.." she thought a second. "..can you do me a favor?"

He blinked in a rather confused way before propping his feet to the ground and looking at her questioning. "What kind of favor?"

"Please wipe the floor. I can't do it and all my slaves are gone. I need to check if everything is here and I need both hands and a clear mind for it." She clasped her hands together. "Please?"

"..cleaning the floor." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Sorry, I'm too low ranked for this. Ask Gaara, he has the qualification for it."

"Please, please, I don't feel like I can do everything alone." She gave him her best puppy-eyes, trying to do the thing that worked with every male she knew, hoping that it was working for this one too.

"Eh.." He looked away. "Right, right. But you have to do something too. Something that bothered me for some time now."

"What is it? I don't think I did you any wrong, didn't I?" Sakura asked puzzled.

He shrugged it off, but within seconds, he was next to her and had grabbed her hair, more or less violently.

"..that hurts, damn you!" She tried to free her mane from the firm grip.

"No, seriously not. It's this mop, and it disturbs me highly. I didn't remember you looking to ugly with long hair, the short crop suited you much more." He loosened his grip a little. "So let me take care of it now, and I will do the cleaning as often as you like, but I won't do it if I have to look at this mess of a mane. It will save you so much trouble here if you cut it short again."

"But.." She looked at her back. "...what has my hair to do with you cleaning and the sightings you can make?"

"Seriously, I don't know, but I can tell you the adventages of shorter hair, if you have already forgotten them."

She yelped and tried to wiggle away only to get held by her hair tighter again. "You see what I mean, don't you?"

"Do whatever you please then, but stop pulling so hard!" She cried out, handing him the single left kunai out of her holster. The next thing was the ugly sound of hair being cut through and a amazing light feeling on her head. Now she was back at when she was fifteen, her hair that was rather long again died down to the short crop that she had kept from the Forest of Death to her training with Tsunade.

"Right, right." He grinned. "I'm going to throw this stuff away and mop the floor then." He almost sung. He turned around when he reached the doorframe, giving her a concerned look somehow. "It didn't mean to hurt you. Your headprotector is slipping, watch it."

She held it when he was out of the door.

The loss of the hair she had grown again felt like she lost something she brought with her from Konoha. Her memories and the feeling that it was from the same place where she was from. And she knew it clearly now. For the rest of this year, this was supposed to be her home.

And whe she was going to go back to Konoha, she would carry hair that would contain many new experiences from Suna, many happy memories and many painful indeed.

She felt that something new was going to grow.

_**Happy Author's notes!**_

_Yep, you see right...I'm still alive, more or less._

_Well, what was the problem with the lovely Amatera, why was she absent?_

_I tell you, I'm visiting a school which is heavily focussing on economy and such stuff, and I have a long day of school from monday to friday. It's pretty hard and very tiring._

_I'm sorry, I think I wrote it in my profile, but I guess many people just don't read it._

_For this chapter, I know it was short, but it's supposed to be like that, poiting out how the feeling in the fic is right now, and why the hell it is labled as KankuSaku._

_Heh, not much pairing until now, huh? It will change, I promise. _

_The part with her hair is important for some of the chapters that will follow, soo keep it in mind._

_If you forgot, I mentioned earlier that Sakura's hair grew again. _

_Well, I'll see you next chapter, but please be patient._


	11. Eleven

"Tell me what the hell happened." Temari asked, hiding the cold rage that was boiling inside her as she saw Sakura's chopped hair.

"Nothing..it's just.." Sakura backed off a little, scared of the vicious looking blonde.

Kankuro, who was busy finding out a way to control a mop with chakra strings, glanced across the room toward his sister. "I did it, so don't go on about it like it makes the sky crush down on your head, Temari." he dryly said.

Temari turned around with a firey spin, cold rage burning in hereyes, which make Kankuro's confidence shrink a little, as he knew how bad it could be to be beaten up by Temari, as sweet as she could, she could turn the same amount of sweetness into violence within seconds. To be true, he didn't think her punches hurt much, it was more humilating than hurting, and it was only dangerous when she remembered that her fan could serve as the perfect cudgel.

"Look what you did, her bangs are longer than her back, and it's so...croppy!" Temari roared feriously.

He shrugged. "See, see, she said it's okay after we...talked. And I'm a shinobi, not a hairstylist for that matter. She agreed to everything I did."

"That sounds like you raped her."

"I raped her hair."

Making a snarling sound, Temari grabbed her forehead. "By the way.." She massaged her temples violently. "Where does all this new furniture come from? These beds are hella expensive.."

She didn't notice the looks Kankuro and Sakura exchanged suddenly, forgetting their previous quarrels.

"..sorry?" They asked as if they had planned it, puzzling Temari heavily.

"What? Why are you looking at me like this, children?" She fluffed one of her ponytails. "I sure as hell don't know where this stuff comes from..."

Kankuro felt the need to bite into the mop, he highly hoped that the whole interior design was planned by his wacky sister, and financed by his even wackier brother. A high hope, he knew, but still with chances on happening.

"..well, you are lucky. I'll check the list of things that were delivered here, so maybe it was just a generous millonaire who fell for you, Sakura-chan." She giggled. "Unbelievable that you can have such fun in such a serious time."

Sakura didn't find it amusing at all. She didn't wish for people falling for her, especially not some anonymous who will send her hospital devices. God, that was bizarre, as she thought, looking at the well-made beds and the desk, shelves and whatever was around.

If someone had a crush, he was sick, paying all that money for a girl like her.

"Hey, stop daydreaming already." Kankuro waved his hand in front of her face. She realized suddenly that Temari was gone and that there were people waiting in front of the clinic. "By the way their noses are dripping and their eyes are bloodshot, I guess they want you to drug them. Isn't that dorky, a feverish cold in the middle of the desert?"

"You're talking like a little boy." She said, not realizing how heavy that single phrase would lie on his mind the whole day.

---

"So, what's the guess." He said without question when they were sitting on the steps in front of the clinic in the afternoon, using the break they could take from the so-called raid on the clinic to have belated lunch. Needed lunch, as Sakura looked as pale as a corpse by now.

"Chicken." she bit her filled dumpling. Kankuro almost choked while he tried not to laugh.

"I meant the thing with the furniture." He yelped, trying to get some air.

"Oh. No. Guess we're lucky." She took another bite, pissing Kankuro somehow off with the fact that her lunch was more interesting that the mysterious appearance of beds, desks and shelves. Even if he wasn't interested in other things that his puppets much, this was very mysterious and somehow he couldn't believe that somehow could develop a crush on a woman who was barely known by most of the people. He also didn't know her and was almost sure that he didn't feel the need to tug her her home and propose to her out of the blue. The truth was that he didn't want to tug her _anywhere_ by now, except maybe for her own bed, and then only for the reason that she usually overworked herself.

"You're mad at me?" He tried to catch a look on her face, which was not looking like she was mad at all.

"Hmm?" She chewed her dumpling before gulping it down with some afford. "No, not really. I'm always a little pissed when you're near me, but that's because you're not the most charming guy around. But I guess you know that."

Now he knew why he didn't want to tug her anywhere. "Not interested in conversation then . I'm just trying to be polite. But I fail, and I know, so tell me what the heck you're thinking."

She was silent for a second, thinking. "I wonder what idiot would fall in love with me while he barely knows me, except from what I do at the clinic."

"Amazing." He accidently said, but hid it in a cough of embarressment. "I mean, be happy that you can get stuff from the fool. Saves us a lot of money."

"That makes it _so_ much easier." She sighed, placing her head on her hands. "I don't like to use people, you know. It's easier for my conscience to work in a shabby little room that didn't cost much than working in a splendid clinic that was payed for by some loveblind guy who doesn't know what he's doing."

"Well, it's not sure that it really is this way. Temari could have just made a joke, as far as she's capable of this kind of humor." He tugged on his headdress. Conversations with girls are tiring.

"Maybe." Sakura said, sitting up and brushing the sand off her blinding white apron. She wished she could wear her light purple field-apron again, but brushed that thought away. She would have to forget about this piece of fashion for a long time now.

It somehow seemed to her that everyone could see her homesickness from even kilometers away, and that everyone was pitying her for being sent away from her home. She didn't know that no one looked at her like that, and that she seemed to be confident and cheerful.

Temari and Kankuro noticed, but were smart enough to shut their mouths. Even now, when she was looking at her clothes for quite too long, no word of comfort fell, knowing that she wouldn't like to hear it.

"Maybe you should close the clinic for today." Kankuro finally said. "You don't look so good."

Sakura gave a sound of thoughfullness. "Maybe you're right." she looked at her pale hands. "Do I really look done in?"

"Only mentally." He switched the lights out with one arm bent around the doorframe and turned the key in the lock of the door then. "Maybe you should cut the time you work every day. I don't know about medic stuff, but you look like you need more rest."

"When I came here" she said in a melancholic way "I remembered that the most memorable moment I had about you was that you were a rude idiot when you came to Konoha for the Chuunin exams and that you were half dead when we came to the Sand to help out."

"Right. So what?" He shrugged.

"I didn't remember you to be concerned about anyone."

"I'm usually not concerned, but I'm responsible for you. I still have to thank you in some way for being responsible that I can stand here now, good of you to remember me." He yawned and looked towards the orange sky. "I will think of something I guess."

"There's no need. It's enough that you're alive and breathing." She chuckled with her hand in her neck. Disgustingly light.

"What does that mean?" he asked while taking a few steps down the steps and waiting for her to start walking. "You know, it would be enough if you saved your own life I think.."

"That's not it." She catched up to him and they started walking in a unbelievable slow fashion. "It's simple..when you are able to save a life, you think it's a present enough to see these people living on, breathing, and having a rather happy an careless life. It makes me more happy to see what I can do for them then any worldly goods can make me."

"Makes sense to me." He had his arms crossed in front of his chest. "So I guess we can befriend each other after all?"

Sakura bursted into laughter, much to his discomfort. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. I guess we can, if you stop acting polite and treating me like a guest of honor."

"Can be done, if that's the point." He thought for a moment. "But don't forget about our bet."

With that he felt her elbow puffing into his ribs.


	12. Talks

Temari was already raging through the whole house when they finally managed to come home, which was, because of their lack of will to go on any fast, or just plain laziness, a rather long stride.

The blonde was obviously not in a good mood, for what reason ever. She gave them a snarl when they entered, sending them into the belief that she would toss plates and cups after them, and when the ammunition was used up, she would turn to chairs, tables and whatever she could grab and throw.

Her eyebrows were knitted heavily, and there was a line on her forehead because of that which made her face seem edgier than it was.

"The whole organisation in this village will drive me...bananas one day!" She growled while , luckily, channeling her rages through her hands and ripping apart a pillow, which was now a pile of shreds.

Noticing the questioning stares she received from her brother and Sakura, she instantly stopped shredding the pillow, and the sharp line between her brows disappeared. Instead, a sickenly, and threatening, sweet smile appeared. "Right, I didn't expect you to be home that early. See, I asked whatever happened to all that stuff that suddenly appeared in the clinic, and those guys told me that, as far as they could see in the lists, it was a present. But they didn't get the name. That means, they got it, but as they weren't able to read their own handwriting, nobody could recognize it. I demand that I can see whoever gave these guys their jobs instead of sending them on active duty like they do with everyone else here."

Furiously, Temari bit a some fruit Sakura didn't know, and munched it so violently that she could see her jaw-muscles working on the edge of power. Together with her angry-sweet expression, a rather humorous sight, reminding her much of the goofy face Ino made when she craved for sweets but refused to eat some because of her intense diet.

Sakura tried hard, very hard not to laugh. Kankuro had already failed with that, tightly gripping the doorframe and supressing his burstout.

"Now what's so funny you dreadful prick?" She asked, while a line of juice was running down her chin. "Next time you can deal with them, if it makes you happier."

"Yeah?" he petted her head "Only if I don't look as stressed as you do right now."

"I wonder how stressed you will look once you have to check through all the paperwork for me." She grinned widely. "Right, I'll give you a week, I'll go to the clinic for that time, and you'll do my work instead. Deal?"

"Deal. I want to see you on the edge of boredom." He shook her hand, and looked his own afterwards, as it was now drenched with the sticky, pink juice that was still on her hand. "Although I would prefer to go to the Fire's Edge again." He added while strolling off to his room.

"...Fire's Edge?" Sakura asked, puzzled, while Temari already had another piece of the unknown fruit.

"Oh nothing. It's a great point for standing guard, and it's close by. Kind of a big, red rock. Hard to miss. He was standing guard there often until our medical squads were attacked. See, from Fire's Edge, you can see a great deal of the desert, although I never liked the place, it's a great tactical point. But Gaara ordered Kankuro back from there and sent somebody else, as he wanted him to be close to him if he needed advice quickly. Whatever, I don't know if that's the real reason, but I learned not to question such things. Usually everything is done with purpose here. But Kankuro is a little pissed about that, you know."

Temari's unexpected need to talk surprised Sakura a little, as she didn't expect her to turn from raging tiger to tranquil dove within seconds.

What a wacky woman she was.

"I see." was the only answer she could give.

"Well, now that we're alone, I can also tell you why I was so furios when I came home." The blonde woman stretched her arm before licking off the pinky juice from her fingers. "I was ordered back from Konoha too, I didn't come back because I wanted to. I was given that same explaination, or almost the same, that I should be around for advice if something bad should happen. First I wanted to decline, because I wanted to stay in Konoha as long as I could."

"But if you wanted to decline, why did you come here anyway?" Sakura felt her cropped hair tickling her back. "Not like anybody wants to get rid of you I think."

"Well, that's the point Sakura." Temari threw her shoulders back and leaned into the chair. "That dumb Shikamaru told me it would be better to go home as soon as possible, and that I shouldn't cause my brother and more trouble than usual. He also said that declining the order to come back, although I _was_ able to decline, would be a personal insult. Well, he didn't say it like that, he said it more in the way you know he would say it, but that's what he meant."

"I see, so what did you do?" The relationships of other people didn't wake her interest at all usually, but as Temari seemed to have a rather short temper when it was about Shikamaru, she enjoyed hearing the unwillingly funny story now. She knew how the personalities of them were always on a conflict, but it was funny nonetheless.

"Huh? Ah, right. I smacked him, said I give a damn about what he thinks about my family issues. I told him he shouldn't expect me back too early and if I get killed in a conflict, that he's certainly not invited to my funearl. Then I departed."

"My.." Sakura sighed. She didn't expect it to be _that _bad. It almost seemed to be like those fuzzy romances from the novels she enjoyed reading when she was young, and which now seemed to be printed trash. "Wasn't that pretty harsh?"

"He can put up with that. I think." Temari shrugged before fluffing her ponytails. "If he really is interested, he should come up and accept that I don't want anyone to stick his nose up my family affairs. At least no one who isn't invited to do so." She poked Sakura's nose. "So, is it okay for you that I come to the clinic for a week?"

"You're welcome." She rubbed her nose. "I think female company will do me good for a while, as for the girls are still pretty done in by the fever, and I don't expect them back for another few weeks."

Temari tugged on some parts of her kimono to make it look right. "As he would say 'The waif and the brat are still absent, so I don't have to play babysitter again', right?"

"I guess you would know that better than I do." Sakura snickered, but bit her lip quickly. "Why is it that you didn't take the duty at the clinic earlier? I thought it was actually your job and Kankuro was only a substitute? Or did I forget something?"

"Um.." the blonde woman tipped her forehead while thinking. "Didn't you receive my letter? Well, but other than that...actually he pleaded to stay at the clinic, I don't know why. Maybe because he would just be bored while trotting around the city and playing guard at the gates. Or maybe.."

Temari began to 'hmm' for some time.

"...maybe he just wants to show how thankful he is towards you without doing a great kablooie."

"A...great what?" Sakura blinked in disbelief.

"A big kablooie! Just like the explosions, just that you see it as if it was a way to be overly thankful, flooding someone with thanks until it's overdone. It's not like any of our family had ever been like that. We're all pretty much the same. More or less. Well, I guess less, but we share some treats."

"I hardly doubt that. Especially when it comes to your wicked sense of humor."  
"Really?"

---

Maybe it was due to his lacking ability of office work that Kankuro surrendered after two days, or he just had enough of the incompetence of many of the workers around him. So Temari welcomed him with a sisterly quarrel when he sneaked into the clinic where many people were still getting medication for their fever, and where some injured shinobi were lying on the beds and cursing the world for everything that was happening.

At least in this clinic, they could swear as much as they liked to, which was highly unwelcome in the hospital in Konoha, Sakura thought a little startled, after one of the shinobi flung a hefty curse towards Temari, who told him not to whine that much about a scratch and that she had seen worse already.

"Looks like a party." Kankuro flung an arm around his sister, making her squeal in shock. "Yah, you won. Happy now?"

"A crazy party at least. Did you know our people were so much after drugs?" She shook her head furiously.

"What do you expect while they are not used to have something that resembles a cold or whatever it's called." He muttered while grinning amused. "They're rather used to scorpion stings and snake bites, but since when the first people settled here, such infection was unknown. I don't know really."

"See, I really love you as much as I can" Temari freed herself "but stop acting like a smartass."

"I just repeat what I learned." Kankuro gave her an arrogant smile, knowing that he had an advantage now. A thing that Temari never saw anyone doing better than him.

She felt a little uncomfortable in the crowd, the large fan didn't make her feel safe at all by now, it was in her way while being on her back. She felt the complete opposite, like there wasn't enough space to breathe.

Of course she wouldn't admit it. Not as long as she was sure that Kankuro would mock her for it.

She thought that Sakura must see their relationship as brother and sister strangely, like a constant war between petting and fuzzing and mocking and violence.

Temari didn't remember a moment where there was tranquility in her family anyway. And she liked to pet everyone close to her, as much as she liked to mock them every now and then.

She elbowed him from the side, making wince in pain because she hid between his ribs.

"What?" He rubbed the area he knew would be black and blue the next day. "You're nuts?"

"It's for touching me. And for being born in general." She snickered before stretching herself to look over the crowd, but leaving Kankuro puzzled.

He surely had a strange sister.

---

"I bet now that everyone is on medication it'll be a little calmer here." Sakura sighed, while examining the injured shinobi who were still whining and getting on the nerves of everyone . "Did you guys try to murder each other while practising? If you go on like that, the population in this village will reach zero before I reach fifty.."

"Want to see." Kankuro snarled, like he did often in the past few days. "It sure as hell won't if Temari and deer-guy start making dozens of babies."

"If you ask me, I'm more happy that you don't go around and mate everything that has at least thirty-six degree of body temperature." Temari growled.

"A house full of little Kankuros." Sakura suggested dryly.

The women groaned.

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't throw one of these bottles after your heads now." he handed Temari one, who eagerly noted what was written on the lable into some kind of chart.

She nodded, before realizing that he said something. "Excuse me?"

"Forget it."

"Right."

"So, what's with deer-guy, does he still want to kidnap you away from here?" he handed her another flask, but looked at it before handing it over. "Morphine? Sounds good for an overdose as soon as you get too bitchy again."

"What's with 'kidnap'? I'm not a kid, so he can't _kid_nap me."

"Don't expect me to say 'girlnap' or 'womannap'. That sounds like some kind of cactus."

"So there's a difference now?" Temari glared at him, like she wanted to say _'I'm going to gut you and rage through your organs with my bare hands.'_.

"Go ahead and kill each other, but don't spill blood everywhere, yes?" Sakura said while shooing the whimpy shinobi out of the clinic, with his even whinier friend following him. "Men, they get hysterical over a scratch, like it's going to kill them."

"I'm perfectly listening. I'm going to remind you of it when the chance is there." Kankuro barked while pulling on Temari's hair in order to losen her grip on his cheeks. They looked like a sculpture of modern art, only way dumber.

She wanted to respond with a dry remark about the cliché of manly behaviour, when she felt something tugging on her apron.

When she turned around, she saw Eti standing behind her, looking exhausted like she did a marathon.

"Um, sensei..can you come and look after Yaya? She has it pretty bad."

_**Author's notes**_

_Just wanted to thank you for the reviews, I didn't think that some people would actually wait for me to go on with my fics..that's just so encouraging not to let you down again. _

_I'm doing my best, really!_


	13. Inside Her Mind

It's been 72 hourse since Yaya had died.

72 hours since Sakura had failed at everything she had learned in the past years.

72 hours since the grandly showed that she couldn't take responsibility at all.

For 72 hours, she was just lying in her bed now, in a completely dark room.

She had buried herself in her thoughts.

She was used to see people die, but this time, it was different.

When she arrived, Yaya had only a light fever, and she took the medicine without complaint.

But after an hour, he body started to boil itself, she did rapid movements and was breathing heavily.

And then everything was over.

She just stood there until Kankuro showed up from the basement, getting Temari up too and basically carried her home over his shoulder, leaving his sister to deal with the family.

There she was now, awake for a time she couldn't even tell, and just thinking about what went wrong.

Nobody had disturbed her until now, not even Temari who, when she came home, exchanged some words with her brother and decided to move into his room until Sakura was better again.

But she shrieked a little when Kankuro put down a glass of water noisefully on her nightdesk. In the darkness, he looked like he came from one of these nightmares children had and which they used to crawl into their mother's bed.

"Take this." He put down a blue pill next to the glass. "It will make you sleep."

"..what for?" Sakura said, croaking after she realized that she hadn't been drinking for quite some time now. "Does it make everything better?"

"No, but you have the second most impressing shadows under your eyes I have seen in my short life." He sat down on Temari's unbelievable tidy bed. Ruining it. "Let's see how it is tomorrow. I can either take you down to some kind of pub and get you drunk until you pass out, or you take this thing."

Sakura emptied the glass without taking the pill. "..you know some flashy place, I bet."

"..by the fires of hell. What have I just said." Kankuro put his forehead onhis palms, sighing desperatly.

---

It was almost morning when a sober Kankuro carried a not-so-sober Sakura home piggyback-style. He thought it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever done, and was just happy nobody saw them like this. At least she was able to keep all the stuff she had inside her there.

"I'm...srry." Sakura whispered a little groggy. "I didn't mean to...hit 'im.."

"Yeah..." her taxi answered unnerved. "..I know. He shouldn't have tried to touch you in the first place. Drunken men are a lot more stressing then drunken women."

Something in his voice made Sakure think for a moment, but her thoughts were so fuzzy that she couldn't get a logical meaning out of it.

"Hmm.." for a moment Sakura gave the image of being asleep, but then she suddenly pressed the air out of poor Kankuro's lungs. "You think I'm attractive?"

"I never spent a though on that kind of thing." He tried to dodge her hands, which were constantly in his face by now. "Why?"

"Mhm, so you duuun..t." Sakura restes her cheek on the back of his head. "I s—hee. So dats why...Sasuke-kun left me, I'm just not attractive enuf. He's so mean."

Not this matter. He never liked the Uchiha in the first place, and he had hoped that he wouldn't come across this subject so soon. And especially not like this.

"I don't thinks that was the reason he left." He just gave dry answers, trying not to dig too much into her affairs, or what one would call this nonsense.

"I think it wasss." She sighed. "Once he told me I'm gett'n on hish nerves and that I'm not talented at all and whatever." She giggled.

Why in the world was the giggling now? Alcohol really did strange things to people. "I don't now if you are just playing games, but I never noticed you being annoying, untalented or ugly for that matter."

"But why did Sasuke-kun..."

"I don't know, and I don't want to know. I can't give you an answer, so would you please..change the subject?" He clenched his teeth.

Sakura was asleep anyway by the time he had finished his rather angry explaination.

Temari wasn't.

She was walking her rounds in the kitchen, and waited patiently until Sakura was loaded off in her bed and the door was closed, before tugging on Kankuro's ear like she did when they were younger.

"Were you going to intoxicate her or what?" She said with angry, tuned down voice. "It's really not nice to take advantage of drunken girls who had just suffered a beat down in their kunoichi carrier."

"Hold it, Temari, I never took advantage of her." he escaped her grip and settled on a chair while outside the sun was rising. "I gave her the choice if she wants to take a sleeping pill or get drunk somewhere, and she chose the latter..." he coughed. "Why in the world do you think I would take advantage of her like a hungry coyote?!"

"Right, as if drinking is healthier." Temari sighed, sitting down also and leaning onto his right shoulder and rubbing her temples. And receiving some pets on her head for being stressed. "You know, you know...word has already spread about this..there were two other children dead, six elderly women and a teenager. And rumors spread quickly. I bet in the evening, everyone knows what had happened and will say that the medicine is made to murder or something stupid like that. Or that letting a foreigner into the village was never a good idea to start with. That it's a bad Omen. And you know how it will end, they will call the ppor girl a murderer. Humans can be so cruel. I wonder what will happen."

"I guess our defination of 'a hard time' differs a little from hers." her brother said, yawning. "That was quite..exhausting, her only subject the whole night was Uchiha Sasuke.."

He pitched up his voice in a rather comical way when saying the name. Temari made big eyes, then snickered. "What?"

She stopped. "Hmm.." she propped herself up. "..nothing important, it's just funny that I noticed it first."

"What did you notice? I want to know it too." he asked curiously, making her giggle again.

Temari stood up. "That the time where Uchiha left Konoha is quite long ago already."

He didn't believe her in what she said.

But he accepted it without asking any further.

---

Sakura woke up the next afternoon being suspicously unharmed by the effects that alcohol usually had. She was silent and depressed, but showed no sign of migraine, nausea, pain in various parts of her body or wherever she could have something. She could also walk.

Kankuro suspected that she had mixed some kind of tonic earlier that day, from the supplies of medicine she had in her room, in her bags. The little witch could have just given him the satisfaction of having a heavy headache.

At least the shadows under her eyes were a little lighter.

"We're going to the clinic later." he stated without asking her. He could have slapped himself for not having the explaination in mind anymore.

"Why?" Sakura groaned. "I don't think people will come there because they want to get killed."

He gave her a more or less bored look, just as if he had been waiting for her to say this. "You must go there – at least be there so you do what you're supposed to do."

He was relieved when Temari sneaked back through the main door. "Eh, I don't know what he told you, but whatever people tell you, you have to state that very young and very old people are much more in danger of getting harmed by such fevers than the group in between. It's like that, isn't it?"

"Uh..yes.." Sakura shook her head. "Strange.."

"Something's wrong?" Temari propped her head to the side.

"It's like I forget everything that happened from last night until when I woke up.." She shrugged. "I bet it wasn't important."

Kankuro was satisfied now. There were the after-effects. But although she sounded light her mood had lightened up, it was clear to see in her face that she guessed that there was something wrong, and the dullness over her eyes wasn't nice to look at at all.

"Well, whatevery. We'll go there, now." He grabbed her wrist and pulled her outside, with Temari hurrying after them.

The streets were busy as usual, the sun was shining and everything seemed normal.

At least until they saw the Leaf-kunoichi.

People stopped discussing loudly and watched her, whispering words to the people they were talking to.

Some also looked away in a demonstrating fashion, giving her no attention at all.

Temari groaned.

"It's like you grew a third eye or something." She put her fists onto her hips while walking. "As if they never heard of someone dying from sickness."

Sakura didn't respond. She had already felt that something like this was going to happen, and that Yaya wouldn't be the only victim. If her medicine failed on one person, it would fail on many others too.

And Sunagakure was...big.

Kankuro still dragged her along. He had a dark look on his face which again gave him the appearance of one of there nightmare-creatures, scaring some people obviously.

The grip around her wrist was pretty tight, like the anger was channeling right through his body without being given a chance to slip outside of it.

Somehow the tight grip was releaving, as it showed her that the tonic she had mixed against the migraine she had when waking up didn't kill her.

But she wasn't given much time to think about it.

Because with a dull noise, a stone hit her on her left temple, which she received without a sound of pain, but rather of surprise.

Temari and Kankuro had stopped.

A kid on one side of the road was looking at Sakura angrily.

Actually, the two present siblings of the sand were giving him the same angry look, but no one seemed to notice.

"My sister died because you weren't the healer you're supposed to be! A cheater, that's what you are!"

Before it could speak on, a woman picked it up an disappeared in the crowd.

"That's.." Kankuro clenched his teeth. "The number hasn't risen, has it?"

Temari shook her head. "Bad luck, I'd say." She put an arm around Sakura's shoulders and led her towards the clinic, while Kankuro scared the people who were watching the scene away with his unbelievable angry face.

---

Empty.

Everything was empty, no one came to get medicine, no one came to get cuts and wounds fixed.

Sakura wore a plaster on the spot where the stone had hit her. Now she would say that it hit her pretty hard, but it wouldn't have changed anything.

Kankuro was sitting in the doorframe, on the floor, his feet propped up against the other side of the frame. He watched how Sakura was doing nothing and was just leaning on her arms while sitting at her desk.

She was just staring, staring, staring. Staring at empty beds.

Staring at the room where no happy Genin-Medics were strolling around doing minor treatments.

"What's the thing with 'Rising Numbers'?" She finally asked, but made Kankuro twitch with the question.

He couldn't get around it anyway. "Ten people, with Yaya counted in." He leaned back, waiting for a yell or a beating for not telling him.

But Sakura was actually sobbing.

"Wait, what are you crying for?" He sat straight within a second.

"Because I can't do anything. Back at home, this medicine could work against almost everything that was caused by viruses, but here.." She moved away some strands of chopped hair that were getting wet slowly. "..I didn't think about the fact that different immunesystem because of different climatic situation would cause it not to work in some cases, I just didn't think about it!"

Kankuro wondered what he could answer to that. He didn't have a clue about healing or sickness or whatever, he could understand that a different weather could take effekt on the way a human being reacts on some medicines, but the chance of this happening was a little too low for his tastes.

And beside, he didn't think that Sakura would fail on a medicine. Although 'fail' was the wrong word.

He pressed a tissue into her face and forced her to hold it.

"If you want to know" he said while sitting down in front of her desk. "I don't think it's your fault at all for thinking that humans are quite the same."

Sakura wiped away the tears under her eyes.

If fate usually served cruelty, she had a big portion of it these days.

---

_**Fluffy author's notes!**_

_Gawd._

_This chapter was so full of hints that I can't count them anymore._

_At the time this chapter is posted, I'm struck down with Influenza myself. Damn._

_If you read the comments, you may notice that I was asked why the fic is called Six Inches._

_Well, I serves a purpose, but it'll revealed at the very End. Muhahah!_

_No, it's nothing that had to do with hentai, although the thought makes me laugh..._

_But you'll see!_

_Next time: The Empire strikes back!_


	14. Letters

"It's pitchblack outside." Sakura sighed, still leaning on her desk. "I wonder when Temari will show up."

"That'll take some time, I fear.." Kankuro halfheartenly answeres while skipping through some photos Sakura had pulled out of her pocket. "The woman with the darker hair is your mother?"

She nodded in return. "Obviously."

"You neither look like your mother or your father." Was the thing he said before returning the small pile to her. "Funny, I would imagine your mother like a older version of you."

"I don't think you would ever imagine my mother."

"Right.."

"My mother is a librarian." Sakura sighed. "She doesn't really care for what I do."

"I just hope your mother doesn't behave the Temari behaved when she tried to be maternal." The thought of his sisters attempts made him shudder.

The pause after the short dialogue made the dark clinic creepy. With nobody there, neither of them felt the need to turn the lights on, so the only source of light was the street lights, even if it wasn't to pleasant to look at photos with such dim light.

"How is it?" Kankuro suddenly asked.

"How is what?" Sakura pulled her knees to her chest. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, how is it like to have no brothers or sisters. Isn't it a little...quiet?"

"I don't know, I think one can't tell the difference when nothing else was ever experienced. But it sure isn't quiet as long as you have Naruto around.." Sakura sighed. She wondered seriously what was going on at home right now, and what everyone was doing.

Kankuro waited a second before reacting. "But how is living here compared to living alone with your parents in Konoha? Here you always have us around, that must be pretty close."

She blinked in surprise. "It's not quite the same."

"Why?"  
"I think the feeling is different." She pushed her bangs from her face. "I don't think it's explainable."

"It's different from knowing someone for all your life, that's it, isn't it?" He streched his arms. "I can't blame you for it, really."

"I'd prefer you to be the annoying ass you are supposed to be instead of behaving nicely." Sakura snickered, a sign of positive emotion, the first time on that day.

"Do you remember about this bet?" He gave her a confident smile. "Forget it, back then I wondered if there was a way to upset you, but you were just bitchy."

"Right, I was already afraid I was bound to it and would end up cooking and bearing children." While trying to pack her disappointment about him into fitting sentenced, she wondered if it wouldn't have been more fitting to let he head crash onto the plate of the desk. And she would have done it just for the stupid face he would have given her.

"Would that be bad?"

"Yes."

"I thought so." He looked out of the door. "Damn..she takes her time, doesn't she."

Sakura wondered if he just wanted to change the subject, but she let the thought go in the next second, as she couldn't imagine this guy to be embarressed of anything.

And Temari was really late. She said it could take some time, but if her sense for time wasn't worse than her cooking, she had to come within minutes.

"Hmm." Sakura crossed her arms on the desk, pulled he legs down again und put her head on her lower arms. "We're not going to wait the whole night, are we?"

"So you're afraid of being alone with me for too long? We were before, and you're alive." He almost rubbed over his eyes tiredly, but stopped when he realized that he if he ruined the paint, it would look like he was crying diva. "We shall look if she's still around and then go home, I sure as hell don't want to make this place my second home."

Sakura smiled and tilted her head to side a little sleepy and sluggish before moving up slowly. "Okay then."

"At least you're better now. Don't worry about the people." He pushed aside _something _the wind had blown in through the open door with his foot. "Let me offer you my arm, lady. You look like falling over."

Sakura gladly accepted. Not only did she look like she was falling on her nose every moment, she also felt like that, and was sure that if the wasn't supported that very moment, the would have kissed the ground.

---

The people didn't look much at her now that they were trotting through the streets. The one who were still busy and making the streets lively in the night were mostly giving the Kazekage's brother questioning stares, as if he was never seen before.

Maybe they never expected him to be polite enough to support someone who looked that beaten.

Or someone who was a complete failure as a medic.

Or a woman in general.

Sakura found it even funnier that the stare were gone as soon as they were anwered with angry glares. She questioned herself if she underestimated the level of respect the people of Sunagakure held towards him. Especially the shinobi.

It was obvious that he _was _somewhat know, or just easily annoyed by people, especially people he didn't know.

In the dark, the village almost was like Konohagakura with the dimly lit windows in the interestingly shaped buildings, and the restaurants and bars that were full of life even now.

Sadly, that was as much as Sakura could get as an impression, because sleep was slowly taking over her mind.

The guards at the Kazekage's place tried hard not to ask questions, she noticed. They dryly informed Kankuro that Temari had left the place not too long ago, and that she said she'll head home directly. He turned his back on them with a curse she hadn't heard of yet, muttering something about Temari and forgetting them completely.

The guards, in the meanwhile, seemed like the last few months happened without them. They seriously asked each other who the girl with the long bangs but short back hair was, and that she seemed familiar.

---

"If you were a brother and not a sister, I would hit you now." Kankuro snapped when Temari opened the door. Sakura was walking the line between walking by helfself and being dragged along by now, only held up by the thought that it would be pretty stupid to fall asleept and hang on someones arm.

"I forgot you.." Temari scratched her head. "I'm sorry, but it was important."

Kankuro thought it was a pity he couldn't reach her. And that he couldn't bring himself to beat his sister to a pulp. And why he was angry at all he couldn't find out either.

"Is she dead?" Temari bowed down a little to Sakura. "Somebody home?"

"The incoming is bad." Sakura whispered, desperatly trying to keep her hold on Kankuro's arm.

He shrugged, pulling her up a little so she wasn't able to fall to the ground.

Temari giggled. "Well, there are some letters for you. You better read them tomorrow so we can all go to bed now." She had Sakura 'handed over' to her as she made her way to their bedroom. "At least you don't look that tense anymore."

"I second that." Her brother groaned, trotting in the opposite direction.

---

The first letter was a note from Tsunade. She asked if everything was all right, and if there were any problems. She described a little what was going on in Konoha and that some people were rather surprised that she departed without telling anyone.

Sakura read the whole thing with her head resting on her hand. She didn't know if she should write a sarcastic comment about everything right beside people dying because of her, and get into the danger of pissing her teacher and the Hokage, who were sadly the same person, off and risking her life.

She decided to lie. She just came up with some lines about no problems and that nothing is troubling her. That she should carry some greetings to her friends.

As if Tsunade had time for it.

"Lying is not good." Kankuro was peeking over her shoulder while she was writing the letter. "You're not a good girl, I see."

"I was never a 'good girl' to start with." She folded the paper and put it aside. "Why are you watching me while writing letters anyway?"

He placed himself next to her. "Just because. It's hard not to meet each other as long as this house stays this small."

He had a point. "You would even come into the room while I was sitting naked on my bed writing the letters without feeling bad."

"We can try if you like." He snarled. "Although I would feel bad because it would be a waste of time. I would want my minutes back if I had to watch such a flat.."

Sakura shot a death-glare at him before he could finish the sentence.

He sneered at her.

She ripped open the second letter furiously. Stubborn man.

Unfolding the paper, she catched a glimpse of the envelope again.

No sender.

"How impolite." Kankuro looked at the envelope rather bored. "Whoever sent this should at least put an address on it."

Sakura giggled. Not because of the comment Kankuro did, but obviously because of the letter.

"Hey" he poked her on the back of her head. "what's so funny?"

"Hmm?" She turned her head. "Oh. No, that's just interesting, although I should be ashamed of being so amused in a time where everybody hates me."

"Nobody in this house hates you. And now tell me what's in the letter." He tried to eye it from the side, only catching some unbelievable shoddy phrases. "Don't tell me some idiot sent you a loveletter."

"Why is someone who writes loveletter an idiot?" She asked, looking a little puzzled.

"Because everybody who sends loveletters is an idiot. Like they're too stupid to say things into someones face." He leaned back and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"For me, that sounds like you were dumped once." Sakura turned to her letter again.

Kankuro made an annoyed sound. "I've never been dumped, before I go after one of the tomboys, sluts or bitches that are present in this village, I'd rather castrate myself and become Temari's personal housekeeper."

Sakura smile a little for a mysterious reason he couldn't make out. "Here, the furniture was indeed provided by someone."

"Really? That means he's even a bigger idiot." Kankuro now had the chance to eye the letter. "That's so...sickenly sweet. How can a person write such stuff?"

He moved his head onto his head.

He seriously thought about who could have sent such a letter.


	15. Preparation

The weeks went by, accompanied by a certain feeling of emptiness.

The clinic stayed empty, and so stayed Sakura's will to treat anyone for some time. From her sadness rose anger and rage, and then she ended up not caring anymore and just sitting behind her desk, doing nothing. Or solving crossword while listening the Kankuro or Temari lamenting about how strange people behave in matters of faith and luck.

Sakura thought it was like a theatre play that everyone hyped at first,and when everyone noticed that it's a usualy theatre play without anything _fancy, _they told other people it was bad, causing the whole play to die.

"How am going to get through this any longer?" She slammed her head on her desk. Or she almost did if Kankuro hadn't grabbed her by her neck quickly, stopping the devastating process.

"Don't kill yourself." he pushed her back into her chair. "At least you have enough free time now."

"What use is free.." She stopped. A thought seemed to flash through her mind, and she pulled out a letter. "Well, maybe I can have some fun."

"Don't tell me it's a shoddy loveletter again."

"Indeed." She pulled it out and quickly read some of the lines. "I guess we should go on a date."

He flinched. "Pardon me?" The thought about her not asking but just saying it as if it was a fact made him shudder. If he ever wished for a date, he would be more happy if he could ask for it in the first place.

"No, not you and me, me and him. You have to go anywhere I go because I'm not allowed to go anywhere alone." She waved the letter around. "He wants to go to a street festival with me."

Maybe a date wouldn't have been so bad at all. Kankuro's eyelid was twitching while he was filled up with an emotion that felt like a dust, old pillow when just push your head into it nose forward and breathe in all the dust that's in it.

"Is everything okay?" She eyed him with a tilted head.

"I don't think anything was ever okay." he groaned. "Why would you like to meet someone you don't even know."

"To see who it is. If he's fat and ugly, I can still stick with you so somebody can pay things for me." She giggled and folded the letter too put it back into the inner pocket of her apron.

"Nice. I see why you don't have a boyfriend." He sat down on one of the unused beds, making it a comfortable place to stay for some time. "Please don't adopt the attitude of the local girls, or else I have to break your neck."

"Yes, yes.." She snickered and smiled at him. "So you go with me? If it's not for the money, then I just need somebody wo protects me from the evil people that lurk everywhere. Please." She cooed at him.

"Whatever." Kankuro crossed his arms. "Don't worry." Although he thought that he would rather take Temari to the festival instead of some random guy he didn't know. He'd rather be the bacon in a bitch-sandwich.

"By the way" Sakura gave him a questioning look. It gave him a bad feeling. "why do you have a festival?"

"Just because." Kankuro sighed, even if not seen or heard by Sakura. "Even in times that are a little more troublesome, the people like to keep their mood up. There's nothing that would speak against it."

"Hmm..I don't remember having a party without a reason."

"You don't need a reason to celebrate that you're still alive." He shrugged throwing himself onto his back. "You should just enjoy it."

---

"Hmm." Temari said while examining the knee-long, kimono-style dress Sakura had brought over from Konoha. "I wouldn't worry. We're in the middle of the desert, if there's some pervert who likes to stare at the naked legs of women, all he has to do is look down."

"That's not the problem." Sakura mumbled. "I want to know if it's _pretty._"

Temari blinked a little confused. "Why? I can't see a reason why it's not pretty."

"Just because I want to look pretty." Sakura said, shaking the dress up a little.

"I think it won't matter much how you look like." the blonde bursted out suddenly. "As long as Kankuro is following you like a shadow nobody will even dare to look at you."

"..."

"But it's the truth.." Temari chuckled.

"I know, I guess I want to avoid anwanted attention." Sakura told her, much to Temari's amusement.

"I guess that's the wrong way around.."

Sakura stared at Temari, not really getting what the older girl meant. "Ehm.."

"Don't worry, it's nothing. I just wondered why you chose to meet this guy, whoever he is, even if you are afraid to meet him after all. Honestly, if I want to date someone I don't choose male company to begin with. Especially not someone who has something like default expression that tells everyone around that he has PMS and is not afraid to use it. Or something equal."

"I want to see myself PMSing." Kankuro pulled one of her ponytails from behind. The two kunoichi were obviously amazed at how he had suddenly been there. Sakura more, Temari less. Temari like it was a usual behaviour.

"So what, you look like it, with your make-up, and whatever." She pulled on his cheek because his ears were hidden by his headpiece, ruining his paint. "Hell, you're going on a date, what do you need your warpaint for?"

"I'm not going on a date." He snarled, marching off to fix the damage his sister had done. "And watch out, I have PMS and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Temari couldn't help but laugh. "See, you'll have fun."

"I hope I will be alive tomorrow morning." Sakura groaned.

---

_**Notes of a sleepy author:**_

_Huzzah!_

_Yea, this was short, but I will continue writing._

_Need to make notes, you know..kehe._

_Next chapter will be there next weekend, even someone like me needs a break you see...but I will write, I promise!_

_(I need to think about what I will really take in into the next chapter. There are many ideas swirling around in my head...)_

_So, next time. Out codeword is "PMS"..(insert idiotic laughter here)._


	16. The Better Choice

"You need a proper haircut." Kankuro sarcastically suggested while trotting through the visitors of the street festival miserably.

"Isn't it enough already?" She replied, keeping her eyes open for the person she was looking for. She felt uncomfortable, the air was somehow heavy and lacking oxygene somehow, breathing was a hard thing to do. And from his bad mood, Sakura could feel that Kankuro felt the same, at least somehow.

"Really, we're running around like this for like half eternity already. I guess the guy just fled because he didn't have the guts to meet you." He took a bite from a fish-shaped, sweet, bread-like thing. "I know what I'm talking about. I always run away from Temari."

"You're dating your sister?"

A small pause followed, accompanied by heavy coughing.

"Gross." He just said, trying not to spend another thought on the tasteless joke which seemed to amuse the girl.

"Well, well." She sighed, looking around. The fact that her date wasn't to be found anywhere made the situation suboptimal to her. Now she was stuck with a miserable guy instead of the one she actually planned meeting, just because men tended to be cowards, as she thought. At least in terms of relationships.

"It would be much easier if women wouldn't give men such a hard time." Kankuro remarked and made Sakura flinch.

"I didn't say this out loud, did I?" She blinked rather embarressed.

"I'm used to it." He waved her fears off. "I grew up with being Temari's punchingbag – and she doesn't even hit hard. What I really fear is her temper and her determination to go after me and kill me slowly while pulling my organs out slowly and one by one if I pissher off badly. Other than that – she's nice?"

"I can't believe you made that a question."

"You have to question it." He had pulled her out of the crowd by the time he ended his sentence, sitting her down on a close-by decorative stone – which he never found useful for any other purpose anyway. "If we walk another step, I'm going to dunk you into the next fountain head first."

"Hmm." She started to stare him down, only receiving the same treatment.

"That's stupid." He said, looking around. "So why do you look stressed like that?"

She shrugged. "You look far more stressed then I do."

"Just tell me already."

"Something feels strange."

He rubbed his neck, silently swearing about the pain in his back that suddenly set in. Looking around, examining the area, he didn't find anything obviously suspicious. "There's nothing."

"It's not like _that.._It's a feeling. Don't you feel it?" Sakura tipped her lower lip, trying to find the right words. "Everything's a little heavy, don't you think."

"Maybe you are just able to feel with me. My back makes me miserable." He sighed, sitting down on another stone.

"I could take a look on it later." She looked at him curiously. "You were slouching anyway. I bet you had too much stress on your back over the years. Rapid growth doesn't make it better either."

"I didn't grow rapidly – you just think so because you couldn't see it." He snarled. "At least I'm not a midget like you."

"Say whatever you like." She leaned her elbows on her knees and propped her head onto her hands. "Maybe you would like to keep the pain?"

"Why were you so eager to meet that guy anyway?"

A sudden change of subject.

Suspicous.

And the air wasn't getting lighter too.

Perfect for a headache.

Sakura peeked up to the sky.

Pitch black, not the best color to get a clear view.

"Um..just because." She shook her head. "I wanted to see if I attract old fat people."

"It's hard to get fat in the middle of the desert, I might say.." He followed the line of her sight. "What are you looking at, anyway? There's nothing."

"I bet there will be something sooner or later."

"You're just to sensitive."

"Maybe." Sakura took a look at the crowd that wasn't so far away. "Such a pity, the only other guys that asked me out before were rather...weird. Or overactive. Too motivated. Well, it can't be helped. We should go back."

Kankuro, who fought a serious battle against the pain in his back, gave her a startled look. "Let's at least rest for a moment, just until I'm able to move again."

"Move?" She examined him with a critical look. "Is it that bad? Maybe you shouldn't carry heavy stuff around all the time."

"Easily said, Lady." He growled. "It's not like I'm magical and can summon my private army without scrolls suddenly. I can try, but I hold the fear that I will end up dead because of failure."

"So you seriously think someone could attack you in your own village?" She shrugged. "I never had any thoughts like that while I'm in Konoha."

Kankuro flinched, something in his back made a cracking sound he could hear echoing inside his body. "Then you're careless, especially since a festival is something dangerous. In such a huge crowd, nobody will recognize you, so you can easily be attacked."

"Still you need to take a break from carrying stuff around. Or else you will be crippled before you reach forty."

"If I ever reach forty." He bit his lower lip, but cursed silently for doing such a girly gesture of inner conflict. "Gah."

"Shall I look at it right now? I bet it's just something that snapped out or another minor thing."

"I'm not going to throw my dignity away." He pushed himself up and tried not to wince. At least not too loud.

"Well, well." Sakura snickered. "Let's go."

They had a hard time getting through the crowd again. Not only because they were moving into the completely different direction, also because everyone seemed happy and everyone enjoyed themselves, except for the strange duet that fought their way through the happy people. One with a massive pain in the back an the other one with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

Kankuro bravely followed Sakura, who was taking large steps through the mass of people, and finally caught up with her to take the lead. His thoughts were centered around the nerves that were obviously gnawing on his spine. Or the other way around, but he didn't care about the failed blind-date anymore.

At least not until Sakura suddenly yelped and held fast onto his arm with one of her hands. The force pulling on her was partially the one of the crowd that moved against her, but other than that, someone tugged on her other arm.

And Sakura, being too much concerned about the safety of the people and fearing that she could damage something, decided wisely not to shatter the ground or pull the attacker close to her with her monstrous strength.

Kankuro groaned and reached out for the hand that held on her harm, pulling the person close to them. The old, fat guy obviosly had enough strength to press red marks into a girl's arm, but not enough to pull himself out of the younger man's grip. Or he was scared, for that matter.

"Hey..." Kankuro snapped. "..so what do you think you were doing?"

The pressure on the man's arm made his voice whiny. "Well, well...wel, I'm the one who...wrote the letters."

Kankuro went silent in disbelief. He would have given a sarcastic line to that, but it just startled him. Or disgusted him. Could have been either.

"I give a damn about what you did or why you did it, you know." he said with a lowered voice, trying to avoid attention. "It's not a good idea to molest this girl there, even if you wrote the shoddy letters, or came up with the furniture. I don't really approve it when people I am responsible for are being attacked in any way."

"Don't..." the man whimpered. The pressure on his arm was painful. "tell me that you.."

"Just disappear from my sight, and I consider not breaking your arms. I don't care if you're old or just stupid." He let the man down and watched him disappear into the crowd. Satisfaction filling every inch of his body.

"I think the world has come to an end." Sakura sighed and let go of Kankuro's arm in the next second. "I hate it when predictions come true."

"I feel for you." He answered, the irony dripping from every word. "I hope nobody saw that. Getting in trouble is not as much fun as terrifying such idiots."

"Hmm." Sakura suddenly put a hand into her face. "Didn't you feel this?"

"Feel what?" He examined her face.

"It was..." Sakura stopped. People started looking to the sky suddenly. The air was getting clearer, and from the pitch black, starry sky with the full, reddish moon, raindrop after raindrop started falling, until a perfect shower of rain came down from the clouds, wetting the ground, and the people in the streets.

And they started cheering.

Laughing people around her just randomly gave each other hugs, praising the weather.

Kankuro blinked, and Sakura started giggling. "So that was it." She said, pushing some wet strands of hair from her face and snickering at Kankuro's paintings that were slowly washing of in the heavy rain.

He grinned widely. "I didn't know you could tell the weather."

"I can't. It was just nasty."

He wiped his sleeve over his face to erase the purple lines of colored water that were running down his face. "Shall we go home? Rain is a miracle, but I don't favor it over being dry and clean."

---

_**Notes for free:**_

_See, I kept my promise, although the chapter didn't really turn out the way I wanted to. _

_But I like it anyway._

_You may have noticed, I turned to shorter chapters, but more updates when I have the time._

_It's really hard to pack two different parts of a story into one chapter, especially since there are sometimes jumps between the chapters that leave out days or weeks._

_I like the thought about people celebrating rainfall._


	17. A Thoughtful of Sugar

By the time Sakura and Kankuro came home, soaked to the bone, Temari was sitting around, doing a stitching on Sakura's travel bag, while the door and the windows were widely opened, like everywhere else in Sunagakure, to let the freshened air come in.

The sight of Temari doing a stitching was knocking Kankuro more off his feet than everything else that evening, like his sister had ever done feminine works like that.

"I didn't think you'd be back this early..." She snarled, putting the half-stitched flower away. "I should have been a surprise."

Sakura waved it off. "I haven't seen anything.." She was quite aware of the fact that she will forget it withing the next 48 hours.

"Right.." The blonde kunoichi examined the dripping duo a little amused. "Looks like you had fun."

"As much fun as you had." Kankuro pointed at her bruised fingertips. "Don't try to do things you're not meant to do."

"Says a man who's wearing make-up." Temari said while turning around and collecting her things.

Kankuro blinked a little angered, knowing that his face was a mess of various shades of purple. "Says a woman who doesn't wear make-up at all."

While the two of them were having their welcome-back-quarrel, Sakura slipped through the gap between them and disappeared into the room the two young women were occupying.

Temari glanced after her at first, but realized quickly why she withdrew. "You should change your clothes too." She poked a finger into Kankuro's chest. "Or else I have to nurse you healthy again."

"Just don't...please." He threw his sandals into a random corner of the room to dry, progressing to walk around barefooted. "Being tortured until you leave the bed freely, that's not what I imagine when I hear 'nursing'."

Temari chuckled, and while he was slouching towards his own room, his own holy sanctuary where he was sure not to see his sister making fun of him, she called: "Get your back checked quickly – it looks bad. I want to talk to you later anyway."

---

The "later" Temari mentioned was in the middle of the night, hours after a very tired Sakura had solved his back problem for the moment with small poke into the line of his spine and a cracking sound which made him wince and wish he had never carried his puppets on his back ever.

The later was when he was comfortably settled on his belly with his face hidden in the pillow, as he was ordered not to stress his back too much. He was somewhat asleep, ignoring the far-away sounds of some drunktards who were stilly celebrating across the village.

When Temari violently threw open his door and sat down on the side of the bed, sighting like she just had a baby, his personal peace was over, and not for the first time he wished he had more time on his own.

"I will eat you soul." He groaned half-asleep, eyeing her with one eye from his pillow. "Didn't you say 'later', not 'sometime'?"

"Don't be such a whiny little baby." She snapped in a non-aggressive way. "I've just been thinking."

"Then think in your own bed, you..agh." He pulled his blanket over his head, only to have it removed by her again. "Right..what were you thinkinh about?"

"About her." Temari leaned back, a little surprised that there was still space. She didn't see how Kankuro was fighting not to fall out of his own bed. "I wonder if she feels bad. People still avoid her, and who knows, the people here are not known to be the kindest. Maybe we should ask if she can be sent home again, only to shorten the pain." She watched Kankuro turning around and moving into a sitting position before going on. "...I don't want to see people suffer from such things anymore, Kankuro."

He rubbed his head. "Me neither." He yawned. "But I think all the people here should see what she able to do for them."

"She can't do miracles." Temari pulled her knees closer. "I wonder what the raven-haired girl is doing right now, you know. Eti, she worked with her in the clinic. I haven't seen her in a while."

"I don't care that much." Kankuro just answeres. "And I know she can't revive the dead or whatever you mean, but maybe there'll be a chance for her to regain her reputation."

"Hmm." She muttered. "I wonder if Gaara has already sent word to Hokage."

Kankuro tried desperatly to keep his eyes open. "I wonder if he even has a clue about how to act in this situation. Maybe you should ask him, I haven seen him in ages anyway."

Temari chuckled. "He's buried in paperwork. Everytime I decide to check if he's doing okay, he's ready to shred all the stuff that comes in, but signs everything neatly without complaining."

"I wonder if he ever learned how to complain about such simple things."

"Sometimes I would like to read his mind too." The blonde sighed. "Well...maybe we should watch what's going to happen."

"Maybe we should try to get sleep at night – and not discuss such _wordy _things." Was the sleepy answer.

"Right, right..just one thing." she hopped off the edge of the bed. "Just go on like you do, will you? You have better access to her than I...at least as a friend."

"...if you stop trying to be a matron to a grown up girl, you would be on better terms with her too.." He buried his face into his pillow again and was sound asleep as soon as Temari reached the doorframe.

---

"I wonder if anyone will come here as long as I'm here." Sakura complained while cleaning the clinic along with the siblings. Surprisingly, Temari was helping out too, making the the first time she ever dusted somewhere. She exchanged a look with her brother.

"And I thought we lifted your mood at least a little." Kankuro finally pressed from his throat. "Looks like it was failure."

"This place is as dull as a graveyard without tombstones." The medic told him with more than morbid sound in her voice. "I guess everyone's afraid I'll turn this place into something like that."

"Stop talking like that, you sound almost like me." He coughed while Temari was swinging the duster across his face, making him snarl at her like a angry kitten. "It's horrible to imagine myself as a girl. Temari is close to the image I get when I do, and it scares me. At least a little."

The whack he received with the duster was noisy enough to make Sakura flinch, but she soon noticed that his head didn't take any serious damage.

At least nothing that would make his state of madness any worse.

While he checked if his cowl was still in the right position, Temari stopped dusting and thought about something for a while. "Maybe you two should go to Fire's Edge, Kankuro. I bet the outpost has lots of work of a medic, even if it's only minor business."

"Um..Fire's Edge? Why there? There are lots of other gazebos everywhere." He rubbed his head.

"Because you know the area. And I bet you want to go there an thrash the guy that serves as your replacement, am I right?"

"Sheesh." He just responded.

Temari grinned. "I bet you can stay there for some time, it's just a small camp, but important nonetheless. And I guess you like being helpful, don't you, Sakura?"

The response was just a nod.

"I'll go there too, yea? Maybe everyone will appricate the help of Konoha when you help to keep up the defense."

---

_**Sleepy Amatera says:**_

_Gawd. _

_You know, I know how to write situations with siblings, I have three older brothers (being the only sister – and the youngest.). If I hear anyone crying about privacy in families with more than one child – forget it. Even if you're an adult (or consider yourself one), you'll still have the problem that you're siblings won't let you have any privacy. They like to knock on your door when you don't need them to, and they'll burst in whenever you don't want them to (for example when you want to take a nap, or when you have your boyfriend or girlfriend over. Luckily I'm single..). _

_So if anyone cries that the relationship between Kankuro and Temari is too close in my fic, I can tell you that being close to your brother or sister in such a way is perfectly normal. I can't tell how often I annoyed my brother with my constant presence. _

_As for the story...god, it's so hard to write a slow progressing pairing. _

_But well, get ready for some action in the next chapters...and I mean things that are important for the story (and not only fluffy gibberish...)_

_Our codeword is **Salamandertail.**_


	18. Fire's Edge

Kankuro realized that Temari was plotting something as soon as Sakura gave him a bored "I't so boring." While they were walking towards Fire's Edge. Walking was preferable in the heat of the desert rather than running like a manic and wasting chakra only for speeding up und the soft ground.

While the red rock was clearly visible, the walk seemed to take ages, not making it better with the constant remarking of how boring the dunes were.

"Trees, trees and more trees are even more boring." He snapped when they had left half of the way behind them. "At least the terrain here is easy to keep in check, I want to see you doing that in your goddamn forests."

"Compare counting trees to counting sandcorns.." She said, before looking up to the sky and making a annoyed face that topped Kankuro's memory of the annoyed looking Temari a little. "Why should I go there anyway."

"Just wait what's going on there, maybe they will keep you busy for days." He couldn't just bring himself to tell her that it was obviously for a Temari-Specialist that she planned out something really, really terrible and would follow her plan to the end.

"I bet she just wants to have an empty house for some days."

"Maybe." he thought about a way to distract the girl from complaining about how boring the sight of dunes, dunes, dunes and a rock in the distance was. "Tell me something about your parents. That means, if you don't mind."

"Why?" She tilted her head, the gear wheels in her head started working.

"Because you have them, and I guess they act like real parents, and not like someone who has complete control over you and your life." He avoided to look into her eyes. "So, would you?"

"No, I won't." She sighed. "Because you have to meet them to understand them. At first they're all nice, but you'll notice how nerdy a family full of librarians is soon. They're too nice, you'll feel like they want to adopt you, and then mama's gonna try to stuff you with her homemade pie which is as edible as the plate of a table."

"I guess I don't want to meet your mother then. If I want inedible stuff, I can just ask Temari with her newly found vegetarian spleen." His face morphed in disgust, the tip of his tounge sticking out between his teeth. "You have to tell her that it's not healthy. If I smell the corpse of a innocent, burnt vegetable again, I'm going to shove it down her throat and make her keep it down."

"I never noticed that she brutalized vegetables.." Sakura stared in disbelief. "Maybe I should take on the cooking again."

"Usually, you're asleep when she attempts to butcher them. But if you start cooking like when she was out of town, she'll only make this stuff just because she wants to annoy us, so...I prefer eating in town." He covered his eyes with his hands to get a good view through the sunshine. "Guess we're almost there."

---

Truly, Fire's Edge was a giant, red rock in the middle of nowhere. Tents were set up on a part that acted like a cliff, actually many tents. At least more than Sakura had imagined when she heard Temari talking about a small outpost. Shinobi were strolling around between them, in a slightly bigger tent the injured ones were kept, in the shadow of the rock.

Most of the ninja seemed to be rather frustrated somehow, and some seemed happy when they saw Kankuro approaching the outpost, although many of them were several years older them him. A bearded, broad man approached them, giving them a happy look.

He must have been at least in his forties. His headprotector had several bumps and seemed dull.

"We figured you'd come back here, Kankuro." He said with a rather booming voice. "And you brought the girl too, what blessing. It's exactly how Temari told us."

"..told us..?" He choked. So she was plotting. Witch. "What's the matter?"

The broad guy's face went from happy to serious within a second. "It's the captain that was sent here. We were missing some squads that were scouting in the north, and when we found two of three teams in pieces, the search for the last one was stopped immediatly, only to ensure the safety of the men here. Bull excrement I tell you!" He crossed his arms. "From the last three man cell that was missing, one member came back here, telling us that one of his mates had several broken bones and the other one was looking after him now. Unfortunatly, none of them had any medical knowledge. But we weren't allowed to go and rescue him – I don't want to know how the poor buy is cooking out there in the sun!

Luckily, now that you came along, I guess you two can act on your own and get this guy here, and his companion too. We also have many invalids here. I wonder if you should convoy them back to the village."

Kankuro was obviously thinking hard right now, while the broad guy shook Sakura's hand.

"Well Missy, I call it a miracle that someone competent came here." He laughed a booming laughter, just like his voice was.  
Sakura first answered with a startled smile, not quite sure what to say. Noting this, the man took the word first. "Don't worry, the only people stupid enough to believe that a good medic can cure every disease without mild cases of death are the civilians that don't quite understand that you're not the goddess of medicine. A good shinobi will trust you, the victim count could have been much higher."

Kankuro suddenly snapped out of his thoughts. "We'll go and find them, don't worry. I just want to know who was assigned to supervise you here."

"Do you know the...well, go and ask yourself, it's over there." pointing at a tent, the broad guy apologized and hurried off to help some other shinobi reorganize their equipment.

"Then, let's see who the guy is that thinks he can just abadon living people to the desert." He tried to hide that he was getting sick by thinking about this.

It made the two them rather curious that there was noone seen in the closer range of the tent. It was like the shinobi wanted to avoid being close to it at all cost.

As soon as their footsteps approached the said point, the cloth covering the entrance flapped open and a woman with curly, grey-streaked blonde hair and square-shaped glasses stepped out, wearing the common gear.

Kankuro thought it looked dorky.

"If that isn't Kazekage-sama's brother." Her smoky voice carried lots of sarcasm in it. And made clear that she looked down on the young man that was several years younger than her. "And the Leaf-girl, whatever her name was. So how may I help you after you were royally called back to the village?"

Kankuro, who was a bit surprised that this woman was the Jounin that was responsible for scouting this area, soon managed to surpress his temper. At least he had the physical advantage, being about a head taller than her.

"I wondered why everyone looks so depressive here, but with you present, it's no wonder they exchange the best ways for suicide already, Sima." He had pushed Sakura a little behind his back, determined to keep her out of the range of the woman.

"Well, at least I'm not in charge of a little girl who attempts to murder the whole village, am I? I still wonder why you were one of the people that were supervising here, considering you're far away from being an adult." Sima shrugged and smiled confidently, the grey streaks in her hair blended into white in the bright sunshine.

"Say what you like, we're going for the missing men now. You know, the ones you sentenced to death." He put a hand on Sakura's back, making her walk down again.

Sima glared after them, and she felt the look from the black eyes piercing into her back.

"Who was that?" She whispered, still in the hearing range of the woman.

"Sima, the best example how being overly feminist can screw up your personality. Who knows how this incompetent woman got promoted without getting disciplined about how to care for the lifes of her underlings." He clenched his teeth.

The broad guy approached them again when they finally left the range of Sima's tent. "How is it, will you need equipment to bring them here?"

A confident grin appeared on Kankuro's face. "I guess we're fine without."

The broad one laughed and pointed to the north. "This way. It's almost straight ahead. But watch out for the nasty scum from the Grass, although I don't think they're a threat for you just because they sent us our men back in pieces." He paused and then added with a wink. "If I was part of them, I'd wet my pants now." Laughing, he retreated.

"Well." Kankuro said while they slowly went to the north. "Can't be too far away. Give me your medic-pouch there." He slowly gripped one of the scrolls from his back and tighened the bandages that held them together afterwards. Other than he did before, he just threw it to the ground carelessly and kicked it open.

Sakura, while watching the whole procedure, slipped the rather large bag she carried with her from her shoulders, and as soon as Kankuro had made his handsign, she yelped as the giant Sanshouo appeared with a poof.

Grabbing her bag and throwing it into the open muzzle of the wooden salamander, he attempted to walk on, and with a rather weird sound, Sanshouo followed him, while Kankuro made it walk with one hand. It was like the image of a large reptile on a leash, absurd and bizarre.

"Don't look like it's scary. It's the best thing to carry around things, we'll need it anyway."

"It's not scary in a scary way." She coughed. "It's scary because it looks cute, like a large stuffed animal. And it's grinning."

He almost stumbled. If he ever thought about Sanshouo, it wasn't quite in the ways of a large stuffed dinosaur. And he never thought about it as cute either, but that could just be him. "I won't ask any further, but..cute?"

Maybe he should offer her to pet it's head.

"Cute, in a very abstruse way." She responded. "Where do you keep anyway?"

"Sometimes, it's on the back of the house, with Temari's flower pots standing on it. It would be pretty weird if I would keep it in the house."

---

They reached the half-dead shinobi and his teammate pretty fast, at least faster than Kankuro had imagined, even with Sanshouo stomping after them, waving it's tail as if it was happy to see the sun. Sakura was at least grateful that she didn't have to carry her bag herself.

Even from slight distance, they were able to see that the injured man was in a critical state and obviously in pain. But Kankuro stopped.

"It's a trap." He said dryly. "They want to lure us there."

"How do you know?" Sakura asked looking around.

"Do you see any carrion birds? If there are people around who are perfectly well, unlike the two down there, the birds get scared easily. They are very sensible, and don't like humans at all. So they don't come close when people are around." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "But we have to go there anyway. At least shinobi from Kusagakure don't come in quality, only in quantity."

"I still wonder why they attack." She sighed. A mystery she never solved during the time of stay.

"Who knows, maybe they're just stupid. I have to say that their strategy of wiping out medics is rather good anyway."

"I hope you just don't mean that." Sakura hissed.

He shrugged. "I'd rather question how they got through Rain. Maybe they're allying or something."

He would have said more, but the man that was keeping an eye on his injured partner cut him off with ununderstandable babbling about Kusa shinobi and that they were assaulted and things neither of them could understand until Kankuro just plainly knocked him out with a hit into the stomach. Packing him on Sanshouo's back, he mumbled something before apologizing for 'not being sorry'.

Sakura had started to examine the horrible messed up guy that was boiling in the sand. When she finally started to mend the broken bones, Sanshouo was already placed around her in something like a crescent shape.

---

_**Notes:**_

_Um...I have nothing to write here this time..weird, huh? _

_I just wondered why the notification emails for the reviews were delayed.._


	19. Meeting Again

The first shinobi that attacked was smashed by Sanshouo's tail, the second ended up under it's large feet.

They started attacking right after Sakura had taken her bag out of the muzzle and wanted to straighten the broken bones of the half dead Sand shinobi.

While many of the attackers were crushed by the massive tail, Sakura continued the rushed treatment, without looking left and right.

She heard the sound of bodies smashing against the large salamander, and Kankuro's bored sigh.

"I think wie can take him away from here as soon as they're gone." She suddenly said, much to his relief, because he noticed how the sun and the heat were draining her powers.

When he took a look around, he wondered why eleven shinobi were all on the same, low mental level, attacking the puppet instead of him. Turning around, he saw Sakura's sweaty face.

She was looking down on the injured man, and looked to the side to see how the other one, who fell from Sanshouo's back, was doing.

And she suddenly heard a snap, crack, and weird munching noise.

Blood was dripping from above her.

An arm fell down.

She slowly raised her head and saw a still flinching shinobi hanging between Sanshouo's jaws, the big teeth slowly sinking through the bones.

Some blood dripped on her face.

Kankuro chuckled and flinged the shinobi out of the muzzle. "He should have known better, really."

His confident grin faded when he looked at Sakura's face. "Uh...sorry?" He inspected her face, the blood was running down slowly. She moved herself up and shook her head. "It's okay. Can you transport him?"

He nodded, but as soon as he approached her to pick up the man, she stumbled to the side and grabbed his sleeve, almost ripping it. That means if he hadn't caught arm soon enough. "I guess you'll have a seat up there too."

---

Back at Fire's Edge, Sakura was asleep fast, cuddled to the side of the big Sanshouo, who blocked a rather large part of the camp. The broad guy had managed to talk a blanket off one of the other shinobi and wrapped her up in it, because the temperature was sinking rapidly.

Kankuro was cleaning Sanshouo's teeth, removing pieces of flesh and washing off the blood.

"She overheated." Broad guy handed him a cup of not-so-good-but-drinkable tea und settled down beside him. "Sima was raging through the whole camp when you were gone, she almost killed us."

"I think I saw worse already." Kankuro proceeded his work with one hand, while holding the cup with the other. "Do you know the good thing about sisters?"

"Tell me, expert."

"One day they'll be wives and then they can trouble someone else. Bad enough, it will make you lonely."

The broad one started laughing. "You won't be lonely as soon as your sister will start producing children."

"No. Just..no." Kankuro worked his way through some pieces of bone stuck between the teeth with a screwdriver.

"Why not?" A familiar female voice asked suddenly, making him flinch.

Temari was standing behind him, holding him by his cowl.

He sighed, because always when he thought he could have some time alone, she showed up. "Thanks for breaking my flower pots, by the way."

"That's why you came here so fast? It's your fault if you decide to store flower pots on my stuff anyway." He turned back to the work in the muzzle and saw out of the corner of his eye how a female ninja gave Sakura something to drink. The screwdriver fell out of his hand a second later.

He threw himself over Sanshouo, holding the woman at her arm.

Her hair was tied into a braid and she had shadows under her eyes, but it was clearly visible who it was.

"Mai?" He asked, giving her a questioning look. He didn't expect her to be there at all, usually women would retire after giving birth to a child. "Aren't you.."

Mai smiled softly. "Am I what?"

Temari threw herself on Kankuro's back, pressing the air our of his lungs. "You have a baby, why are you serving?"

"Oh.." The smile on the woman's face didn't fade. It turned a little melancholic, and the color in her bright, ember eyes dulled almost grey.

She made a pause, and Kankuro noticed how pale she was, and that the auburn hair wasn't well kept anymore. It was uneven and the braid replaced the usual pigtails.

"It died from the flu." Mai then said and made Temari hold her breath. "I don't think it's anyones fault, really. There are things in the world humans can't go against, and sickness is one of them. Still...it's good that many people survived, isn't it?" Mai brushed Sakura's bangs away. Her hand trembled. "If I would stay home, all I would hear would be my brother's bad words about the poor girl, although she's not guilty. I'm sad, and I was depressed, but I need to move on, really."

The siblings didn't know what to say that moment. And they wondered.

Because usually, they knew what to say.

Mai smiled. "You two should be so happy. You are so attached to each other, and so is Kazekage-sama to you. Everyone knows it. If one day you have to separate, it will be the saddest day before you meet again." She stood up and silently moved away.

Both of them sat down on the other side of Sanshouo, their backs turned to the sleeping medic.

Thinking about the possibility that anytime earlier, somebody of them may have died for whatever reason, it's something they never thought about anymore since Shukaku was brutally removed from Gaara's body.

Death was a matter that always occurred to other people.

Temari had pulled her knees to her chest. "What will happen as soon as we start our own lifes, Kankuro?" She rocked back and forth. "Did you ever think about this?"

"That's something I wanted to ask you. You came up with the idea first, didn't you?" He pulled his cowl from his head and ruffled through his messy hair. "It's not like I'm thinking about searching for things like that right now."

"It's just so difficult." Temari sighed. She settled her head on her crossed arms. "But you can't tell me that you didn't think about it ever."

"Ever?" He leaned back. "What ever?"

"Tell me how it feels." Temari smiled.

"My head is alright, thank you." He angrily replied, flinging the cowl into her face.

She threw it back at him, rubbing the spot where the metal plate had hit her. "Not that idiot. Didn't you ever think about when..." She stopped. "..oh, forget it. I think you must learn yourself."

He didn't say anything. It wasn't quite clear to him what Temari meant, and why women always had to talk riddles instead of just saying what's the matter.

"Hey Kankuro." She puffed him into the side.

When he turned his head, her face was serious again.

"Would you be sad if I would die?"

"You can ask questions...it almost hurts." He started tackle-hugging her under loud protest.

---

The next morning, Sakura was already up and eagerly healing random shinobi with Mai assisting her a little with the little knowledge about medical ninjutsu she had. It wasn't much, but enough to close a cut reduce the amout of damage.

The half-dead man wasn't in danger of dying anymore, and his mate was watching his state with open eyes.

This little game of running around and working went on until Temari and Kankuro were up, wondering why everyone was in such high spirits although their captain was unpleasent person. They didn't know that Sima wasn't up at all, while Sakura was almost asleep again, curse the small chakra-pool she had as well as the weather, which was, at least for her standarts, torture. It was alright as long as she was in the village, where she could always hide in the shadows, but out in the sandy badlands, she thought sometimes she would die any minute.

Kankuro tipped her head with a screwdriver, receiving a roar. "Is it alright to run around like this again? You almost looked like a mummy yesterday." Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Sanshouo's tail and started fastening some screws.

"I already worked when you were still asleep, so don't say things like this." She closed her eyes and leaned against her bag. "You don't like girls with long hair because Sima has long hair, do you?"

He lost his screwdriver again. "Not really but...you give me a complete new reason."

She chuckled. "So why?"

He thought for a moment, trying to make his reason not sound stupid. "You seemed to be much tougher and more confident when your hair was short. When you came here you weren't like you were when you came here two years ago. And I think your outside reflects your inside at least for some part."

"So you thought you could just change everything with cutting my hair?"

"Not you hair, but the roots that connected you to...whatever made you so soft and frustrated."

"I don't want to be protected."

"I know."

Sakura opened her eyes a little, and was a little disappointed only to see his back. "Why are you doing it then?"

"You can only do so much at a time." He turned around. "Would you like to die?"

Both of them were surprised by the looks on each others face, Sakura without enough strength to repress her exhausted but kind smile, and Kankuro with serious concern.

"Not yet. Someone's waiting."

He turned back to the tail.

"I guess this one is lucky, then."

---

_**Notes:**_

_I wonder. I really wonder._

_If Temari had children, I wonder if they would go totally nuts over Kankuro, only to give his dislike for children a comical character?_

_And I really thought about what would make people think while reading a fic, so I just tried out some things, because there are some books where I really cried while reading (e.g when Matthew died in "Anne of Green Gables")._

_Well..and don't worry about me writing too much, I have the ideas all bottled up inside me, really! It's flowing from my finger, muhaha! -wiggles fingers-_


	20. Be there, done that

"Is this even edible?" was the first question when Temari handed her brother, who was in a strange state of tranquility, a sandwich which she had snatched from somebody. "Pardon me. I mean: Did you make it?"

She snarled and glared. "What's going on with you?"

"Your questions get weirder everytime you ask me something." He bit the sandwich only to discover lots of tofu and vegetable in it. As edible as a trunk of wood. "What should be going on?"

She sat down beside him, kicking the missing screwdriver to the side and made it disappear in a crack in the rock. Kankuro looked after it with a melancholic gaze. "That was the last one I had. So that's how they always disappear."

"Stop crying about your screwdriver." She poked him to get attention. "I just want to know why in the world you behave like a girl who just reached puberty."

"Like what?" The example Temari had given wasn't quite fitting, as he thought. "Please express yourself a little more-"

"Your moodswings." She sighed.

"I'm not moody." He turned away, terrified to notice that now that his screwdriver was gone, he couldn't pretend to be busy anymore. "Why does it concern you anyway?"

"I want to get you a girlfriend before I get engaged one day." She snapped. It sounded more ironic than anything else, though. The look on her face didn't imply anything else also, but Kankuro wasn't able to see it, and judging from her voice had always been difficult to him.

"I don't need any. Women are evil." He turned around again, leaning against Sanshouo, which he hadn't re-scrolled yet.

Suddenly, Sakura appeared from behind, putting both lower arms on his shoulders and waving a screwdriver around. "I found this on the lower level, it just fell into the lap of a scout whose thigh was broken a little."

Slowly taking screwdriver from her hand, he pulled her hand with a grateful gesture.

Temari smiled.

---

After another argument with Sima about the responsibilities of the Kazekage's siblings, Temari and Kankuro decided to leave with Sakura. Actually, Kankuro decided, as he feared the girl could be involved into things she doesn't have anything to do with, and, as he explained, he knew how Sima liked to do that to clueless bystanders. And he especially underlined the fact that he would attempt to kill her if they would stay there any longer and had to listen to the woman's outbursts.

So they said their good-byes to the broad guy and to Mai, who promised to come back to the village as soon as possible.

They reached the village again in relative short time and found everything as left, except for Temari's broken flower pots that lay shattered in the backyard.

Sakura, not really enthusiastic to start her duty in the clinic again, did anyway, and was rather surprised to see that people started coming to get treatment again.

"I wonder why they changed their minds so suddenly." Sakura said one evening when she was cleaning up the last corners, while Kankuro was lying on one of the beds and did literally nothing.

"Because they want something and the other replacements are just overrun with patients." He yawned. He longed for his bed right now, he had been since sometime in the morning when he couldn't go back to sleep again, because he woke up with his heart doing a wild dance in his chest.

Now he fought against his eyelids giving in to the heavy feeling. He amused himself with following Sakura's feet with his eyes, counting the light steps she made. It amazed him how girls used their feet, instead of stomping around angrily like men do, they were taking graceful steps. Everyone but Temari did. Temari was the queen of stomping.

She had pretty feet and nice legs. Not as muscular as they used to be. But it didn't matter anyway.

She hurried back and forth, noticing how beaten Kankuro appeared to be. She didn't really want to him to suffer from sleep-loss, any also didn't want to have him asleep in a hospital bed.

When she finally had everything ready, his mind was conquered by pretty legs and he felt lucky that he came back to his senses right when he wanted to reach out for them when he was already half asleep.

He stared at her with wide eyes when he realized that he was about to grab her thigh, and received a concerned look. "Everything's alright?"

"Everything." He shot up from his lying position. "Almost everything. Can we go home now? Mama is waiting."

She shook her head and questioned herself what kind of damage had been done to his head while walking out.

The sky was clear and starry already, the air surprinsingly warm. Unlikely for the region, as she had learned.

"That's so nasty." She heard him complaining while yawning and trying to look to the sky.

"Really? I think it's pretty." She pointed up a little. "In Konoha, the sky looks the same."

He tilted his head. "Yeah? I wouldn't be surprised if you would say that it's nicer in Konoha."

Sakura snickered and stood still for a while. "I came to like this place after all. Isn't tat nice for you to hear? You are so attached to your homeland, I always thought you would take it as an insult if I talk bad about it just because I felt so bad about being sent away from Konoha."

"I don't think you insulted anyone while here. Well, except for being a little bitch just because you were pissed at your teacher." He yawned. "Come on, let's go. I have an idea. But we need to be home, or else I'll just fall asleep here."

He walked on before she could ask what the idea was, and he walked quick enough to shatter the image of being sleepy.

He almost kicked in the front door, not caring if his sister would wake up, or if she was even around.

His face quickly gave the expression one had when nausea happened. The air in the house was bad as hell, thick as hell and would be easy to slice with a kunai.

"Gah, I feared this would happen." He left the door open. "I thought it would be better to move on the roof this night, or else we're not going to survive like this.." He coughed. "Go get yourself a blanket and go upstairs."

Although her image of a good nighttime didn't consist of being trapped on the roof with a man, she decided to do what was the smarter thing to do and fetched her blanket and trotted upstairs on the flat roof of the small building. From here she was able to see that most buildings that were close by had flat roofs, although it seemed that only this district was built like this and was surrounded by the Suna-esque architecture, round buildings and even rounder roofs.

Temari was already snoring on the roof, looking like she had a long day, too. It wasn't very late, but from her position, Sakura could see that some people had moved on their roofs to escape the heat inside their houses.

"I wonder if it's just the weather." Kankuro sat down in the opposite corner of where Temari was sleeping. He had already gotten rid of his cowl again, and he did look like it had gotten quite hot under it, his hair was partially sticking on his face. He stared at the girl thoughtfully before sighing. "I wonder how I should tell you what I gotto know recently."

"Just spit it out, you can't offend me any more like you did in the past months."

"Right, but don't blame me for the damage I may cause." He progressed to remove his gloves. "You know, Eti had herself assigned to another clinic because she was afraid of the rage of the people. And the request was fulfilled because there was no reason not to."

Sakura kept silent until a glove hit her head. She shook her hair and caused her headprotector to fall out and land on the ground with a metallic sound. "Is that all? I thought you may tell me that you suffer from a tumor in your brain or something crazy like that."

"...surprise?" He blinked. "Well, good, at least you don't think it's bad or whatever."

"I don't think so." she pulled the patchwork blanket around her making it a comfortable place to sleep in. "It's much better to have only you around. Otherwise you would always start quarrels with the girls." She lay down, face turned up to the sky.

Kankuro leaned onto the short wall behind him. "You're interesting."

"Am I? I always thought I'm way to mediocre and common to be interesting."

"That's not exactly what I mean." He scratched his head. "Other medics would go home after all the ungratefulness to get here. Why did you just stay?"

"Hmm.." she rolled onto her side. "Maybe just because. You two were so nice, it would be impolite to just leave." Sakura smiled. "But why would you even care."

When she was back on her back, she started wanderin the sky with her eyes, wondering if all her friends back in Konoha would see the same stars right now. Homesickness overcame her for the first time after many months, stronger than ever. And despite her smile, tears were rolling down from the corners of her eyes as she imagined how Ino would still tend the flowers in her family's shop every day, and how Naruto would consume tons of Ramen. Those things seemed far away suddenly, and she felt ashamed that she got used to life how it was in Sunagakure, without a Ino in a flower shop, and without her teammate.

And without a still missing Sasuke who she wanted to come back so much even if the feelings she once had were now dull and dusty.

She sniffed in shock when Kankuro wiped away the tears with the back of his hand and a provoking grin on his face.

"That's not good for your skin, princess." He patted her head. "Don't be so sad, you'll go home soon."

He said this thing confidently, his voice didn't leave a doubt that he meant what he said.

But inside, he felt that his life would be really dull when he had to go back to his usual duty again.

---

_**Notes, notes:**_

_Hehe, this sounds like it will soon be over, doesn't it?_

_Well, it won't be over so soon. There are still some chapters to follow, and something like a showdown. -evil laugh-_

_Well, I have a little anecdote for you. Do you remember how pissed Kankuro was about the situation with Temari and Shikamaru? _

_Well, that's based off a conversation with one of my brother who said:_

"_If there's a guy that I don't like and if that one starts dating you, I'd beat him to a pulp and flush him down the toilet."_

_Talking about brother's duties, ne? -g-_


	21. Movement

It wasn't bad that Temari had kicked him out of sleep at about four in the morning, and Kankuro also didn't mind going on a walk with her, even if it was just ten times up and down the street. If she wasn't able to sleep, she should have her walk.

But he couldn't stand her sticking her nose up into his business.

"Eavesdropping is bad." he snapped.  
"It's not eavesdropping when you talk loud enough that Gaara can hear it in the residence!" She hooked her arm into his. "Really!"

He snarled and clenched his teeth. "And why do you think it's so incredible funny?"

"Because I'm proud about how you grew up from unstandable kid to someone who feels for others." She chuckled. "But.."

"But what? Don't tell me now I shouldn't be nice." He avoided looking into her eyes and stared to the dark sky.

"Idiot." Temari punched him into the ribs. "No, I wonder if you know that you usually tend to be mean if you like someone. I know that you tease me because you like me, but maybe she doesn't and just thinks you do it with just everybody."

"So and you think it matters?" Kankuro tilted his head. "Wait..you want to tell me something, I smell it."

"Do I?"

"By the way." He tried to change the subject. "Do you remember when you told be to look at your fan some time ago?"

"That was two months ago." She commented.

"..."

"So, what is it that makes it vibrate so strangely?"

"The iron is stressed. You know, the outer part. Maybe you should get it repaired or get a new frame for it, or it will break." Kankuro drew a frame into the air with his finger. "It's getting old, that's my guess. I don't know enough about iron to tell exactly what's the problem."

"I love you for knowing things that usually wouldn't make sense for you to know." Temari said and grinned, while shaking Kankuro's arm around.

When they came back home again, as soon as Temari was tired of walking the same path again and again, Sakura was still asleep on the roof, rather peaceful. Kankuro had almost crawled back under his blanket again, when Temari suddenly jumped on her feet again. "Right." She whispered. "There was a letter for her, it's still on the nightdesk in my room...tell her when you two are ready to go off again, yes?" She whispered.

Kankuro nodded with eyes half opened. Things like this always came to her mind last minute.

---

"I can't read it." Sakura stated, handing the letter to Kankuro. "Your brother's handwriting is horrible."

Kankuro grabbed the letter with a amused grin and was startled by the scribbling that was done on the paper. He didn't remember it like this, it was even worse than his and Temari's handwriting, and five times as unreadable.

"It think it says that your service here will end in..four weeks, and that you'll be sent home with an escort on the evening of the last day." his amused expression died down, but Sakura cheered up quickly. "It wasn't even a full year!" She bounced around and threw her arms around the rather surprised puppeteer. Hetried best to keep his balance and not throwing her off in shock. "Isn't it great, isn't it?" She squealed right into his ear.

"Yeah, somehow, but you're deafening right now." He peeled her off with a painfully forced smile. She didn't seem to notice and still danced around. When she turned around again, Kankuro was sitting on Temari's bed, watching her happy dance ending.

"Are you alright?" She asked, tilting her head and looking into his unpainted and unhooded face. "You don't look so happy to get rid of me."

He shook his head and scratched it afterwards. "It's just strange to imagine that I'll have to give up the long-time job of guarding you wherever you go. It'll be boring."

Sakura pinched his nose in return. "You have a sister to pick fights with."

"I bet she'll stay in Konoha soon. And I have a younger brother who thinks he doesn't need me as a bodyguard because I'm embarrassing." He grabbed his back. "Damn."

"Does it hurt again?" Sakura grabbed his shoulder, trying to catch a look of his face. "Is it bad?"

"Not much." He answered and tried to look as if the pain wasn't as bad. "Maybe it's just no good idea to jump into my face without warning me."

Sakura covered her mouth realizing that she caused his pain. "I'm sorry, I really am! I didn't think about it at all!"

He grinned in pain. He didn't expect her to think about his back issues at all when she jumped at him happily. At least he could now die as a happy man.

"Turn around and lift your shirt, I'll fix it."

"When you arrived here, you said that you wouldn't heal any little scratch because it irritates the human body much. Changed your mind?" He followed her orders bravely and hoped that Temari wouldn't burst in right now.

"Not quite. But I want to have you walking straight for the next sixty years, and that you'll be able to carry around your scrolls for at least fifty more years." She began to press various spots on his back, a little shocked about the many things she had to make okay again in his spine. "Maybe you should forget lifting heavy things for a week or so. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to crush your spine like that."

"Sixty years?" he cackled. "We won't meet so soon again after you leave, I guess I shall take care of it." He flinched when she tried to push on specific spot.

"Then I'll have to come here only to make you remember." She layed her hand flat on his back. "Does that hurt much?"

He shook his head. "Nah. Even if it would, I wouldn't tell you."

"That's male cliché for you." She poked his back hard and made him yelp. "Well, I'm done. Don't think about lifiting anything, yes?"

"I try." He trotted away, his shirt flung over his shoulder. Sakura giggled about his expression and sat down on her own bed when there was noise in the house and Temari stormed in.

"You look happy." She said with a satisfied expression. "What's the news Gaara had for you so suddenly that he wrote the letter himself?"

Sakura smiled at Temari. "I can go home in four weeks."

Temari in response clapped her hands, but suddenly stopped. "Really? Well, it seems that this house will grow a little quiter then, with out constant quarrels about minot things, yes?" She snickered. "Did you know that..."

Sakura looked at her with a questioning look.

"..that there are issues with the heart passed down the family? I want to know who'll get it next."

"That's bad." Sakura shook her head. "A heart-sickness is always hard to handle. I wonder if medicine develops far enough for that in the next years."

Temari started laughing. Loud, much to Sakura's confusion. "Yes, hard tohandle, who do you think you're telling that.. . Do you think you'll be able to handle it, maybe one day?"

"I don't know." Sakura shook her head again. "I don't have any experience with hearts."

Temari snickered. "I see. You'll learn, I believe it."

---

The night was quiet when Kankuro locked the doors to the clinic. A little too quiet for that matter, no people where on the streets anymore, and not even the wind was blowing. It was cold as well, and it seemed to be far to normal.

"Do me a favor." He turned to Sakura. "And stay beside me, yea?"

She nodded. "But why?"

"I feel a little uneasy." He pushed her back. "Just do it, will you?"

She didn't feel like going against him and just stayed on his right side. Soon she found out that something wasn't quite alright herself, but she wasn't able to put her finger on it. Or maybe she was just too tired to notice.

Some shinobi were hurrying through the streets, and when Kankuro stopped one of them, he just shrugged. "We couldn't find you anywhere and thought you were informed already. The scouts noticed movement of Kusa's shinobi, and we are getting ready for confrontation. Temari is already off with some squads to the north to avoid a direct assault on the village."

"Idiots.." Kankuro muttered, pushing the guy away. "You know perfectly well that I'm spending time doing babysitting." He turned to Sakura. "I know you fixed my back just two days ago, but we'll go to the frontline now. I bet they'll have great use for you there."

---

_**Notes:**_

_Gawd is Sakura dumb not getting any hints._

_Yes, this is short..._

_I feel this fic should get a good 30 chapters to have it done with a nice number, don't you think so too?_


	22. Far From Nowhere

Temari was panting heavily as she tried to get some oxygene into her lungs.

She was hiding in the shadow of a dune with a few shinobi from the squad she had lead to battle. She knew she wasn't used to lead a large group, they were almost fifteen people and she was in charge of them.

But Temari didn't want to decline the task when she heard that the enemy was already in _their _land, and heading straight for the hidden village.

It made her angry. No one would enter Kaze no kuni with evil intentions.

Not without expecting to die, especially by her hands.

---

It occurred to Kankuro that leaving the village head over heels wasn't a good idea, especially for the heels part. Sakura wasn't used to run with heeled sandals, she was tired after work and he remembered that she wasn't allowed to interfere in the battles as long as she wasn't authorized by her Kage.

He was a glass of pickles with an "Idiot" label on it.

When they reached Temari, Sakura kicked his shin without getting a revenge strike. He really thought he deserved it somehow.

"What the..." Temari looked up to him.

"Don't ask. I would like to first." He rubbed his shin while Sakura placed her hand on a cut in Temari's face and made it disappear. "I don't see anything. Is something going on?"

"They retreated for now." Temari rubbed the place where the cut was. "But I don't think this will last long. I don't know why they're doing this, this is just slaughter, not even a battle."

"Is it a good idea?" Kankuro turned his head towards the way they had come from. "This place isn't even an hour from the village."

"I don't know. Anything." She coughed and raised an arm, signalizing to the shinobi and the reinforcements that just arrived. "Set up a place to rest or something –" her voice went lower. "I don't expect them to attack again in the next few hours. We should make the best effort to get some rest."

---

Everything was quiet.

Some of the Sand shinobi were getting some rest in the shade of a dune, lying on blankets, and ready to fight in the next second.

Sakura was going around and fixing various scratches and other minor things. She felt a little out of place, she wasn't useful in any way.

Maybe, she thought, she would be useful if she would wash the dirty clothes.

There was no moment where she could use her raw power, shattering the ground is a little hard in a desert, and shattering bones only works good if it's the bones of an enemy.

Yes, she wished for a poor victim she could beat on to her heart's delight, until she could see their organs squish out of their mouth. She was damn angry.

"How are you?" Kankuro peeked over her shoulder suddenly, and Sakura repressed the urge to break his jaw. "You look tired. Would you like to get some sleep?"

"No, I only pretend to be tired. Really. After working for many, many hours, and after being dragged out in the middle of the desert, and concerning now is the middle of the night..no! I'm perfectly fine. We should just run a marathon, I would win for sure, I'm so not tired."

Her left eye twitched.

Kankuro shook his head, implying feelings of guilt. "I know, I know. But I don't want you to freeze if you fall asleep, right?"

She didn't answer. Her gaze was directed to the numerous, bright stars on the firmament, and her ears were making out parts of what Temari was screaming to some other shinobi who obviously messed something up. "So what do you want to do about it?"

"..warm you up?" He put a blanket around her shoulder from behind and forced her to sit down. "So you are tired. I don't care if you fall asleep, it's my duty to stay where you do."

She nodded.

"What else do you want to hear?" He impatiently asked, annoyed by her not turning around and only showing him her back. "It was unfair to just take you here?"

"It's okay again, don't worry too much." She suddenly snapped around, obviously pleased with whatever he said. She pulled the worn out, brown blanket closer around her. "I shouldn't think you're responsible for that anyway, you're just trying to make the best of the situation."

"I think you need this, or else you won't be happy with the boring stuff you have to do in the village." He gave her a pat on the head and rested his hand there suddenly. "So, what's that now?"

Sakura was shivering a little suddenly, and her face showed a unhappy look. "Nothing, it's just.." She searched for an excuse. The truth was that she wanted to cry yet again because she felt the same way like when one of her friends in Konoha dragged her away from doing the needed theoretical work in the hospital. She wanted to hide the homesickness that again was raging through her emotions, stronger then ever now that she was only a few weeks away from going home. "...I'm getting cold. Can you do it like this and hug me a little?"

If there were things that startled Kankuro sometimes, this beat every strange thing he had known so far, even Temari's vegetarian spleen and Gaara's new found love for pickles. Nonetheless, he just gave her what she wanted. Just because she was a bad liar. A skinny bad liar who wanted to cuddle up against someone.

"Eh.." he reacted after some minutes. "How long do you want to stay like this?" He noticed that she _was _amazingly cold, but had lied anyway. "Are you going to..." He stopped. She was asleep already, and he had a problem that would cause some people to spread rumors about him. And even worse, he had a sister who would see everything.

He sighed. If he wanted her attention before, this was too much already.

---

She woke up when the air started heating up again. And when she noticed that she was lying on the ground and not in the embarrassing situation she had found herself when it wasn't even dawning. It was embarrassing, she admitted, but also unbelievable comfortable. And it felt right, in a different, strange way she hadn't felt before.

"Hey, princess." Kankuro waved, suddenly appearing in her sight. "Now, shut it before you even start talking, apologizing or whatever. It wasn't very funny to peel you off."

"I didn't want to apologize." She whispered back sleepily. "But did I cause you any discomfort?"

"That's not what I would call it." He turned his eyes away. He felt a little uncomfortable since Temari went off to look at the movements in the enemy lines she saw. "Do you feel better now that you had your beauty sleep?"

"Somehow." She yawned.

"Well." He sat down next to her, determined to wake her up. "After you insisted to become something like my second skin, I noticed something unmissable."

"What?"

"You're flat." He chuckled.

"I know. Is that problem for you?" She moved her upper body up and looked at him a little questioning.

"Not really. It's good you can walk straight." He blinked. Two times. "Why do you ask that?"

"Just because you beat me to it." She smiled in a honest, innocent way that made him believe what she just said, and that made him believe that he was an idiot who would always fall for that from now on, even if it wasn't to mask a lie.

The moment when he realized that, he also noticed that he wasn't fond of her anymore, but in a state of hormone driven attraction he didn't notice before.

Which wasn't a surprise to him, because the village girls were as attractive as a bowl of old rice.

"What's going on here anyway? Everyone's gone." She looked around, only a few shinobi were left.

Kankuro's attention shifted. "Yeah.." he shrugged. "I have a bad feeling."

Truly, he had. Everything was quiet, and there were vultures doing their circles over them, like they were the meat for their next meal.

A scorpion crawled through the sand an inch from Sakura's feet, who drew them closer in shock and somewhere a snake buried itself in the sand, just to judge from the sounds.

He gave Sakura's head a quick pat, one like they were given to children who should stay where they were. His steps carried him up the dune, where he could get a better view of the surrounding area.

For the first time in long period of time, he cursed the good sense he had when it came to the things that happened around him.

Because what he saw shot a chill down his spine.

---

_**Note:**_

_Haha, cliffhanger!_


	23. Next to Nowhere

They had carried her all the way from the battlefield. The battle was over, but at what cost? Temari's stomach was slid open, and with horror her brother saw that she was still alive, breathing and rolling her eyeballs over to face him. She tried to speak, but only a fountain of blood exploded out of her mouth. Why in the world was she done in like that, and why no one else.

Not many had survived.

Temari had the final blow in the battle.

But the leftovers attacked her, and for whatever reason, she didn't defend herself.

"You are..." He wanted to say something, but tried hard not to get too sentimental. He felt stupid, there was his sister lying in front of him with her body a living autopsy and he thought about being sentimental.

He was almost thankful when his medic vessel pushed him aside when she noticed he had everything stuck in his throat. On the other hand, he thought she was retarded for thinking she could save Temari now. She was bleeding, bleeding like a waterfall, creating a lake unterneath her, drenching the sand in a crimson color.

She had flowers like this in the backyard.

The same red color.

Sakura flung the sheet aside that covered the opened part of the lower body.

"How were you able to survive this long?" she spook easily, as if she saw no deeper problem than patching up someone who fell down the stairs. "Let's see. You sure have a lot of blood."

Kankuro was blinking. He had sunk into the sand on the other side of his sister who was still awake and absolutely aware of what happened. Although pain was mirrored in her eyes. What a damn good self control she had.

"Are you...at your senses? A person can't possibly survive this, and even if you are the best, I doubt you are _that _good a medic that you can do miracles!" He almost yelled, trying to keep the volume of his voice in check.

"Don't insult me like that." Sakura calmly replied. "That's a cut, and I can close any cut. But if you don't stop yelling like this, I may just punch you unconscious so you shut up. I need my concentration."

He hadn't realized he was yelling at her, but nonetheless he kept quiet. It was a depressing thought that she wanted to do things that seemed impossible, moreso because he couldn't bring himself to express his inner conflict about Temari's upcoming death in any way than to be angry.

The green chakra was blinding him in some way. Too much and too bright. But the bleeding stopped and Temari's eyes stopped looking worn out and ready to go.

She coughed and gently tugged his sleeve while the flesh on her torso was mended.

"It's the frame." She croaked. "The frame broke because I didn't get it tempered.."

"Stop that." Sakura moved one hand on the blonde's mouth. "Don't stress it as long as it heals." She shot a glance at Kankuro, who was far from believing what he saw happening. "I improved since I left this place two years ago, and yet there are many things that are not possible. But as long as there is life in a body and blood running through one's veins, death is always a step behind me."

Temari smiled in an innocent way.

Kankuro moved his eyes to the other side of the horizon.

And Sakura screamed before everything went dark.

---

The world of pre-death was funny. Funny in a bizarre way, Sakura couldn't describe it. It was black first, but every now and then, colorful schemes appeared, people who she knew, some of them were dead already. The people as they were in Konoha.

When she took a step to the right, she found herself in the Yamanaka's flower shop. There was Ino, tending some fresh flowers, running around wildly and watering them. She muttered something about too much fertilizer, and how this ungodly stuff would smell so bad her hair would start curling up in disgust. At this point, she ran her fingers throughher hair and sighed before going back to the counter, just before a woman stepped in.

Sakura's vision blurred, and then she saw herself in the flower shop, together with Ino, when they selected the flowers they would bring to hospital. To give them to Sasuke.

The moment she said she wanted one for Lee as well, the vision blurred again.

It was a strange thing to watch one's own actions. It was years ago already, but she remembered it clearly.

Just as if it was moments ago.

Sakura stepped forward again. She felt like laughing, every scene that was played in front of her with herself as an invisible guest was colored in the most brilliant shades of the rainbow, but none of the colors actually matched reality, and she found herself quite amused when she saw her battle with Ino in the Chuunin Exam and their hair flourished in bright green.

Her ways through the cinema in her mind were without thought and completely confused. She stepped right when she felt to, turned around and never saw the same scene twice.

She saw herself with her hair in the grasp of Kin Tsuchi, and she shed tears when she saw herself cutting it off and fighting on without a chance to win.

On the left she had a seat beside herself when she watched Naruto's and Neji's fight, and suddenly she wondered if she had really been there. Physically, she knew it happened, but what was her goal in life, even back then?

It felt like a bad drama, a play in the local theatre where the princess always waited for her Samurai to come, and the only thing she did was to sit and wait, to shed a tear and to bury her hero in roses if he fell. While she was just sitting there and doing nothing.

But what was the difference between the things she saw?

While waiting for Samurai (_...Sasuke..._) she hadn't realized that there was no Samurai in the real world who would come for his princess. And that there'll never be, no matter what she did.

It was up to one self if something happened, and no Samurai would come for her if he didn't know she was serious. If he ever knew of her exsistance.

Still she wondered what the hell Ino had to do with that.

When she decided to go back the way she came from, she saw how Naruto came back to the village after his training with Jiraiya, and how they first met after two and a half years of not being Team 7 anymore.

She shook her head. The boy must be furious that she went away without a word and didn't even write him a letter.

Two steps ahead, she saw Tsunade sleeping on her desk, and Shizune knocking while opening the door.

It must have been what happened right then, just like when she saw Ino working.

She watched the blonde pigtails going up and down with her shishou's back. She was fast asleep, her breathing even.

Was it day or night now?

She couldn't tell if a second in this state of mind resembled the same amount of time as if she was awake.

Maybe the days were rushing by?

Was she dying slowly, while asleep? Or was she just bleeding to death that moment?

Alone on the ground of...

Where had she been last?

She didn't remember if it was her own bed, or the leaf cushioned ground in the forest.

Or maybe she was lying around in the desert?

Maybe she had just dreamed the whole incident in Suna.

She decided to go some steps ahead, but was disappointed that she only saw herself extracting Sasori's poison from Kankuro's torn body.

She wondered if anyone had told him since then how much the toxic had eaten him in the few days he had left from the moment he was the winner of it.

He wasn't in a good condition when he got rid of it, and Sakura was pretty surprised when she saw how quick he recovered from it. A very determined person, just like Temari was.

Willing to give his life for his younger brother.

A honorable person doesn't always act honorable.

Some steps ahead she briefly saw the insane eyes of Sasori of the Red Sand.

Speeding up her steps, she wondered what she would see if there was an end to the dark, spaceless yet spacy room.

Shikamaru and Temari were fighting. Temari showed him a crushed piece of paper, roaring something about being ordered back home, and how much she wanted to stay in Konoha, and Shikamaru almost yawned back that she shouldn't cause her family trouble and that she was needed in Suna.

The loud sound of a harsh slap.

Temari lifted the frameside of her fan to defend against an attacker.

The frame broke in the middle.

Kurenai's round, pregnant belly, which was already quite some time ago.

There were scenes she couldn't have seen at all, scenes she couldn't relate to, things she nothing had to do with.

Her own hands closing Temari's torso.

Then only flashes of scenes followed, a crying Tsunade, which was the longest, a chandelier, a blood-dripping package.

Birds, chirping, wind, mountains, clouds.

Sakura stopped her steps. She wondered if everyone who died saw these things. If seeing the future was only meant for the dead, because they couldn't tell anyone about it?

She closed her eyes and went forward until she reached something like a soft wall.

Maybe people die _if _they see what was happening in the future?

Maybe that was why people had to die, because such things were not for the living.

She opened her eyes.

And she screamed.

---

A warm, comfortable place.

There was a rhythm, too. Maybe a heartbeat, or constant breathing.

Or both.

She still had her eyes closed. She wondered where she had been before, her memory was just dark and cloudy, but there were no pictures or sounds. Nothing.

"..kay?"

A soft shake ran through her body. Not she was shaking, someone shook her.

"...okay? You.."

It was a deep voice with a angered tone in it. Angered without being angry at someone.

She tried to chase away the clouds around her senses. She slowly opened her eyes. She could see Kankuro's unpainted face in the edge of her vision. She hadn't realized that he had such a deep voice.

"...ringring..." she whispered.

"What?" Confusion showed on his face.

"I mean..." She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "What...and where..why?"

"Yeah, I see." He snickered. It was obvious that she wasn't at her senses at all right now. "You were ambushed from behind while working up Temari, who is fine now by the way. You're in your clinic right now, together with many others who were injured back then. You've been asleep for one week and a half, I thought you would never wake up again."

He propped her back up a little. Sakura realized he was holding her upper body up all the time and suddenly knew that the sound was his heartbeat.

Another funny thing.

She suddenly remembered from the night before she received a journey into a gap of memories. His heartbeat was almost slow enough to put the moon asleep.

She closed her eyes again and let her head sink back into the position where the sound was loud and tireing.

"..Are you alright? Don't go back to where you came from!" He said, almost worried enough to make her stay awake for another minute.

"No sorry...but I'm so tired. And you have such a nice sound inside of you..."

And with that, she silently declared that any questions would be asked tomorrow.


	24. Destructive

The next time Sakura woke up again, the clinic was dimly lit, and outside there was darkest night.

The bandage around her chest was acing terribly when she breathed in too harshly.

She could hear people whispering, snoring and sighing from pain.

When she noticed that she was lying flat on the rather cold ground, she propped herself up and leaned against the wall, trying to get a better view of the room. There was a young woman hurrying between patients, obviously a medic who had been assigned to take care of these people. Her clumsy movements showed Sakura that she was not too experienced.

Kankuro was gone, but she could make out Temari from the corner of her eye, who was lying on one of the beds. It seemed like she hadn't been able to heal her completely before..whatever happened. Strangely, she thought, she had assumed that Temari was already okay again and at home. Sakura couldn't remember seeing her when she woke up from her coma.

She heard the young woman whispering to someone in the door, it was a rather impulsive, aggressive whisper. Like she wanted to keep the person away.

Sakura could now see that the girl had straight, long, platinum blonde hair, which reminded her of someone she couldn't recall before. When she could see her face, her first impression was that she didn't like her at all. It had the looks of someone who thought that he's totally on top of the world. It was almost weird that Sakura couldn't seem to remember that girl at all, she was sure that she would recognize someone who would put her to such a state of unease.

The girl was shoven aside, and the person, who was now identified as a very tired Kankuro, hurried off to Temari's side, who sat up the moment her brother started talking to her.

Sakura smiled slightly and closed her eyes, that were already stressed by the dim light.

She wanted to laugh out loud because Kankuro couldn't seem to get the concept of whispering right. It was like his voice was smothering all other sounds, much to the annoyance of the other patients and the blonde girl.

Sakura was dozing off again when she felt a slight, soft pat on her head. She groggily opened her eyes, only to get a slight shock from the painted face.

"So, how does your new bandage top feel? You should get dressed, you'll catch a cold." Kankuro stuffed a curious, pink fruit into her mouth.

Sakura chewed, so she wouldn't disappoint him. The fact that her chest was only bandage didn't bother her much anymore, although it seemed to amuse Kankuro very much.

"Why am I still here, anyway?" She said after swallowing the last piece of the juicy, nameless fruit.

"You don't seem to recover that well." He shrugged. "I don't know a tiny bit about this medical business. Maybe it's fatigue."

"Why?"

"Because you're a stupid girl that only gives and gives and gives and never takes. And thus you sucked your energy reservoir dry." He scratched his head. Cowl was missing.

"Oh, Prince Charming." Sakura groaned. "What's going on here anyway?"

"Hm? Right." Kankuro let himself fall into a sitting position. "You see this girl there? That's Sako." He lowered his voice, this time successfully. "She's Sima's niece. And a rather horribly character. And ugly, if I can say this. Well, ugly as far as I can tell, but she's somewhat like the hospital."

"Huh?" Sakura tilted her head. A gesture that made Kankuro fall in uneasyness. Explaining such metaphors wasn't quite what he thought to to be fun.

"Everyone had been in there at least once." He finally shrugged when Sakura groaned yet again. "Almost everyone."

Sakura moved her hand to her forehead. "You're neck-deep in this mess already, stop talking yourself out."

"But I said she's ugly, she's not at all what I consider an attractive woman." He waved his hands in front of him, as if he wanted to block whatever she was thinking now. "See, I don't like the way she looks at me. It's like she wants to undress me right here."

"Stop it already."

"No really. I don't like her at all." He realized that trying to convince her of it was pointless somehow. "How do you feel, by the way?"

"Like a pile of dung."

"Talking about being straight forward." Kankuro crossed his arms behind his head and leaned to the same wall as Sakura did. "Temari said she didn't want company, so I came to bother you."

"So you actually didn't come here to ask me how I feel at all?" Sakura said in a rather disappointed way.

Kankuro felt as if he said the wrong things the entire time, and also that he felt bad about it. Somehow it gave him a wrong feeling when he thought about that she would be gone soon, and that he would fall back into his daily duties like the time of her visit had never happened. A strange, painful thought which made him feel aggressive the moment it came up.

The knowledge that this stupid girl was still crying after her pre-teen crush who didn't give a damn about her, his team, his friends or who ever, who left his village only to receive the power to destroy his brother from someone like Orochimaru.

He didn't understand how she could still like this guy in an romantic way, after he willingly shredded her heart with a electric bread knife. _He _knew that he was a far better solution to her needs than this egoistic offspring of Uchiha.

And there was something else.

"See, I.." He nervously turned his eyes away. Why were hormones usually messing with ones personality? "...can you understand what this means? I mean, what it does to me. Or not. Or whatever. What am I talking about anyway?"

Sakura, who was a slight bit confused about the mess of words he spat out. "..uh...no? What do you mean anyway?"

"I mean when you are.." He stopped. "You should care more abour yourself."

"Why?" She rubbed her eyes. Fatigue was showing now. Tired, baggy eyes.

He clenched his fists angrily before grabbing her face and turning it so she would face him. "You shouldn't ask why, you are not _dense _or _retarded_! All you do all day is to care about other people, and you're slowly _killing _yourself with your devotion to help them! And that's it, I don't want to see you suffering like this, I can't _take it, _damn!"

Sakura's pupils went smaller with every angry word he threw into her face in a almost passionate way, a way that made her feel how serious he was about this. And how worried he was about _her._

Not about the reputation his village would lose for sacrificing her health because so she would cure their invalids.

Her pupils were the size of the sandcorn when Kankuro came to his senses again. It was like he could feel how fear was mixing with her fascination for his sudden outburst, so he quickly drew his hands from her face. His fingers had left marks on her cheeks. Her breath was clashing into his face. And it made him question himself.

Her eyes were filling with tears, heavy ones that dropped right from her dark, lower lashes, without even touching her cheeks first. There were no trails on her face. Only the small drops that still rested on her eyelashes.

She covered her face in her hands. No sobbing. Only the blocking of the tears that fell to the ground.

The pain felt like a stab right through his chest. Silently, a congratulated himself cynically to be able to make girls cry because of him, and not for him. It was like accidently tearing apart something you really like, and afterwards you want to hit yourself for being so careless.

But it was still _accidently. _

His blood was sprinting through his veins.

The pulse reached a never known limit. Worse that a near-death experience.

And God knows, he knew he had plenty.

He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace. It felt almost violent, in a soothing way, and it was full of regret about doing bad things to something you really like.

Sakura's head rested on his collar-bone, tightly held without and back-fighting. Some strands of hair tickled his face. Some of them were bleached to a coral color by the sun.

"But it's all about you. I feel so guilty when I think about what could still happen to you." He said, quite wondering what made him so soft during this year. "I never saw someone as devoted to other people's problems as you are."

Her hands clenched into his shirt. The tears made the cloth wet. "Did you never feel like you had no purpose in life?" She whispered with a cracking voice.

Kankuro blinked. He never thought about something like that. "I don't think so." He nuzzled his cheek into the tangled hair. It had grown again. "But you cannot tell me that destroying yourself so other people are happy is your purpose. That's nonsense."

She didn't answer.

"I don't like to see things I like getting broken. Even if you're not a good shinobi, you can be a good person. In a ... stubborn way. So, if you don't stop doing this to yourself, you'll have to live with the knowledge about the bad feeling you give me."

"You're getting mushy. That's so very unusual."

Kankuro sighed. "You are dense, aren't you? Really, I think I'm..." He didn't came to end his sentence. The clashing of medical instruments against each other made Sakura twitch so hard that she basically ripped herself out of his arms.

With a grim look on his face, Kankuro tried to make out the source of the noise.

----

_**Lovenotes:**_

_If you don't go squee over this chapter, I did something wrong. Seriously._

_I'm sorry I didn't update for such a long time, but I just didn't feel like writing, and if I force myself, then there's only crap as the result._

_Music for this chapter: **HIM – Wings of a Butterfly**_

_Try and read it with this tune in the background. It changes the whole feeling._


End file.
